Recent News and Updates - E-mail cquick@d211.org

October 29, 2005 - Both Boys and Girls Punch Tickets to State

Both the Palatine boys and girls cross country teams qualified out of the tough Schaumburg sectional.  Despite Carly Bates not running and Kaitlin Millin dropping out, the girls still managed to win with 79 points.  What a testament to their depth and strength of team.  We also were missing Esberaldo Gonzalez and Danny Holbach, but we couldn't manage to pull out the win.  We scored 80 points to Prospect's 64 points.  We actually scored 8 less points than last year, but placed worse.  Through four guys we lead them 40-47, but Prospect's #5 guy had a great race while the back part of our pack couldn't get it done.  Still, we qualified to state for the third straight year and for the 19th time in school history.  The boys and girls will be hunting state trophies next weekend at Detweiller Park in Peoria.

Look for a longer update later this week.  I have a full day of grading ahead of me in order to get my quarter grades done for tomorrow.

October 22, 2005 - Palatine Boys and Girls Sweep Regionals

I'm going to Milwaukee to see Paul McCartney with my in-laws so a longer update will have to wait until later, but both teams won IHSA Regional titles at Deer Grove East today.  Both teams scored 43 points.  On the boys side, we edged out Prospect by a 43-46 score behind the 2-4-6 finishes of Steve Finley, Mat Smoody, and Glenn Morris.  It was a great race and the times were smoking.  More to come later.  Congratulations are in order to Morris - he was on teams that won 4 straight regional titles.

Boys Regional - Finley, Smoody, and Morris Lead the Way

Outside of the Hinsdale Regional, our meet was probably the toughest and deepest in the state.  Nine MSL schools were sent to Palatine along with St. Viator.  The team challenge again came from Prospect and Schaumburg.  It was close with Prospect down to the wire, but we managed to pull out a 3 point victory (43-46).  Schaumburg, Buffalo Grove, and Fremd finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Individually, the race again was between Steve Finley and Prospect's Ryan Craven.  After narrowly winning last week, Craven ran a great race, finishing in 14:02, which is only one second off of the course record set last year by state champion Sean Macnamara from York.

We attacked much harder early on this week, and it paid dividends with fast times.  Finley went out a bit too quickly (2:08) for the opening 800, and he paid a bit by the mile as Craven overtook him and blew the race open.  Morris and Smoody also ran aggressive first miles.  We came through at 4:40, 4:46, and 4:48 up top.  Behind our top three, Sagar Patel and Kevin O'Brien also got out hard and had great position by the mile.

The team race unfolded in dual meet fashion.  Morris, Smoody, and Murray fought back and forth through the two mile with Anczyk just behind them.  Sagar and Baptiste also traded spots in here while Addante, Prospect's fifth man, started a bit more conservatively and caught O'Brien right at the two mile mark.

From there, we simply had to finish hard, and everyone did his job.  Morris held fourth place at the 300 meter to go mark, but he was undone by the big speed coming from behind.  Murray caught him with 200 to go, but Smoody had also moved to his shoulder and won the dual in a killer sprint to the finish.  His 14:35 was 6 seconds faster than Morris' time to win the Regional his sophomore year.  Finley held second place after Craven got away while Sagar once again finished hard, holding off all challengers to finish with a course PR of 15:00.  O'Brien fought hard over the last 500 meters.  He eventually finished 20th, but he was 2 seconds out of 15th.  His 15:16 is a great time on our course for a sophomore.  We put new 6 and 7 men in due to injuries to Holbach and Gonzalez, and both Mike McCain and Alex Mourousias responded with course PRs.  They ran 15:32 and 15:45.  It was quite a thrill to win the regional with three sophomores in the lineup.

Overall, this was probably our fastest performance ever on our home course.  We ran better than we did last year at the Palatine Invite, and both Smoody and Morris demonstrated that they have great momentum heading into the next two weeks.  For the first time, Morris equaled a previous best from his junior year.  His 14:39 was only one second off of his course PR.  Hopefully, we can keep improving as we start to re-integrate our injured guys back into the lineup.

Girls Regional - Laskowske Breaks Deer Grove Course Record

Our girls team has been ranked #1 in the state ever since mid-September, and they once again stated their claim as the state's best by running to a huge victory in the Regional.  Despite missing an injured Carly Bates, the ladies ran to a huge win behind the stellar run of Amy Laskowske and a great pack.  Amy showed that she is back to her state championship form, running 16:52 to break her own course record by 3 seconds.  Behind her, our pack of Kaitlin Millin, Michelle Brunk, Torey Wright, Kaitlyn Peterson and Colleen Standridge came in close together.  Freshman Emma Mazlanka also ran great in her varsity debut.

Check out the girls' pack from the race:

October 16, 2005 - Palatine Programs Go 6 for 6 at MSL Conference

Saturday was another special day for all those associated with the Palatine boys and girls cross country teams.  For the second straight year, Palatine swept all six of the boys and girls team races as well as four of the six individual races.  All of the boys and girls train together over the summer, and it was really special to see our kids performing so well.  For most, it was their last race of the season, and for many it was the last race of a career.  I just want to thank all of the boys and girls for giving us coaches such a special treat and being such good kids to work with.

The two blockbuster races of the day were the boys and girls varsity.  In the boys, we pulled out a narrow 61-67-67 victory over Barrington and Prospect.  Barrington placed second on the 6th man tiebreaker.  For much of the race we were down, and we had to fight all the way to the line to win it.  Our all-conference athletes were Steve Finley (2nd), Glenn Morris (4th), Mat Smoody (11th), and Sagar Patel (17th).  Kevin O'Brien just missed the top 25 honor, finishing in 27th.  Dan Holbach was 33rd while a hurting Esberaldo Gonzalez finished in 45th.  For the boys, it was our third consecutive title.

October 9, 2005 - Quick's Marathon Story

Everyone tells me each year that they enjoy reading about my marathon adventures so I thought I'd give everyone the lowdown on what happened today.  My goal was to run 2:50.00.  I ended up placing 381st out of 32,900 runners with a time of 2:53.29.  That was over a five minute improvement from last year's 2:58.45.  I had a sub-2:50 going for me deep into the race.  I probably made a bad decision to go for it late in the race, and I died a rugged death in the last three miles.  I decided at Mile 19 though that I would go for the "dare to be great" situation.  I thought I could hold 6:20 pace all the way in and run 2:48.  I made it to about Mile 22 before I started to tie up.  Many thanks go out to Matt Dettloff and Kevin O'Brien for doing their Sunday run with me and giving me someone to talk to.  Special kudos go to OB for not letting me quit on myself when the going got real tough out by Comiskey.  I told OB that he has now seen me at my most desperate and nakedly tired.

October 8, 2005 - F/S and JV Win at St. Charles

The story at the St. Charles Invite this year had a lot to do with two great programs squaring off, well sort of.  Palatine and Glenbard South won all four team races.  We won the freshman-sophomore race with a scant 26 points while also taking the open race with 38 points to Glenbard's 47.  On the flip side, Glenbard South won the varsity with 24 points in a great run, and they loaded the freshmen open race with their best guys to win with 17 points.  Alas, we sat our varsity since they had raced twice a week for the last three weeks, but I think we will see those Glenbard boys down the road in a couple of weeks.  The matchup between #2 and #3 will have to wait until then.  By the way, Bruce MacTaggart took the varsity race with a course record time of 14:44 - what a great run for a great kid!

October 6, 2005 - Boys Win 4th Straight MSL West Title

Both the boys and girls teams won MSL West regular season titles last night with victories over Fremd.  For the boys, the 16-45 win ensured us of our fourth consecutive title.  None of the seniors on our team have been part of a dual meet loss - the winning streak is now at 24 meets.  Combined with the F/S, we are 47-1 in our last four years with the lone loss being to Barrington this year on the F/S level.  The boys will be looking to continue last night's success next weekend at the MSL Championship.  The meet will be hosted by Rolling Meadows at Busse Woods on October 15.

October 2, 2005 - Palatine Wins Crete for Second Straight Year

Yesterday at Crete we scored 13 points over the seven flights to record our second straight victory and our fourth straight top five finish.  The quality of the meet has diminished a great deal in the last five years, especially with the start of the Lockport Invitational.  Naperville North and Neuqua Valley both dropped out this year, and it impacted the depth of the meet.  Still, we faced tough teams from Waubonsie Valley, Carl Sandburg, and Wheaton North.  We only beat Sandburg by 5 points two weeks ago at Peoria Notre Dame, and we ran better in relation to them this time.  It is always a joke to judge anything by time at Crete since the course changes each year, but we ran fairly well.  We won flights 5-6-7, and I think all three of those guys could have run much faster.  They all cruised in with fairly easy wins, especially Smoody.  We are still working on our top four, and Waubonsie did a nice job to win flights 2, 3, and 4.  Our guys led late in all of those races though, which is encouraging.  We went into the meet with three goals: score less than 20 points, win three flights, and lead in each race past the mile.  We met all three.

September 25, 2005 - Palatine Invite Results

Our kids seem to rise to the occasion each year at the Palatine Invite, and this year was no different.  The boys varsity placed second behind nationally-ranked York.  We also managed to narrowly win the first in a series of tough MSL battles.  The final team scores looked like this for the top five: York 57, Palatine 110, Prospect 118, Barrington 129, and Hersey 233.  Assuming that we both make it to state, we will run Prospect four more times this year so that should be fun.  In the individual battle, Ryan Craven of Prospect seized the race just past the mile mark and never looked back.  His 14:06 was the #2 time ever behind Sean Macnamara's 14:00 from last year.  Steve Finley ran great to take 2nd place in 14:17.  That is the #3 time ever, and the best Palatine time by 15 seconds or so.  Eric Dettman of York was third while Hersey's super sophomore Kevin Havel was 4th.  We had the top four returnees from last year's state meet in the race.

September 17, 2005 - Girls Win, Boys Second at Peoria

Both Palatine programs enjoyed another banner day at the Peoria Notre Dame Invitational on Saturday.  The girls finished 1st out of 44 teams, defeating three of the top teams in the state.  They scored 87 points to better Sandburg (101) and Naperville North (118).  On the boys side we finished second to a tough Glenbard South team by a score of 87-124.  Carl Sandburg gave us a good run to finish third with 129 while Elmhurst York's JV placed fourth overall. 

September 9, 2005 - Pirates Win Hard Fought Duals at Barrington

"Are you starting to believe?"

Each time that we go out to Barrington, we know that we will be given a tough race from both their boys and girls squads.  Thursday was no different.  The varsity boys won 26-31 behind a course record run from Steve Finley.  Finley ran 14:55 to break Glenn Morris' course record of 15:24 set two years ago.  The girls squad held off a charge by the Barrington girls in the first 1 1/2 miles to score an 18-42(?) victory.  I'm not sure about Barrington's score, but the ladies swept the top four behind Amy Laskowske's winning effort.  On the F/S boys level, our kids showed they have a lot to learn, taking a 24-31 loss from a talented Barrington squad.  It was our first F/S loss in three years.

September 3, 2005 - Palatine Boys and Girls Stellar at Hinsdale

The Palatine program had a great day Saturday at the Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invitational.  We excelled on all levels in both boys and girls.  Both the boys and girls varsity won, the boys sophomores won, the girls open team won, and our boys freshmen placed second.  Individual winners included Amy Laskowske (girls varsity), Mat Smoody (boys sophomore), and Torey Wright (girls open).  Neuqua Valley gave us a great challenge in all three boys races, placing second in the varsity and the sophomore while winning the freshmen race by a ton.  The boys and girls competed well and showed that our time together in the summer was well-spent.  Way to go everyone!

August 31, 2005 - Palatine Boys and Girls Win Openers

Both Palatine teams won their opening dual meets against Prospect last night at Deer Grove East.  The girls scored a perfect 15 points with Amy Laskowske and Carly Bates leading the way.  On the boys side, we won 21-40 behind a strong run from Steve Finley.  Ryan Craven won the race overall in 14:27.  The results are a bit misleading since Murray and Ancyzk did not run for Prospect while we did not run Glenn Morris.  Look for this to be a much better match-up by the time Palatine Invite rolls around in three weeks.  We also won the F/S by a score of 22-33 behind a great first place run by Alex Mourousias.  I have updated the all-time lists for bests on each level at Deer Grove and stored a bunch of old info in the Archive section.  Check out those lists in the History section.