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

Saturday, September 9, 2006 - 5 x Mile Results, Miles Update

I put up all of the results for this morning's workout in the Workouts section.  We did way better than last year in this workout, including some amazing finishes from the varsity guys.  Almost everyone, in fact, ran the last one as their best one.  Way to go boys!

Mileage Updates - I have updated the Week 4 Mileage and the season Mileage Progression.  We are certainly working harder than last year so that should bode well for the rest of the season.

Friday, September 8, 2006 - Fremd Dual Results, Hinsdale Splits

We opened our MSL West dual meet season last night with a 16-45 victory over Fremd.  The frosh-soph also had a great race, winning 17-46. We do not have an invitational this weekend so that allowed us to run aggressively in our first race of the year at Deer Grove East.  The team had a great time, and a ton of guys set Deer Grove bests.  On the girls side, Palatine narrowly beat Fremd 28-29 behind a 2-3-5-6 finish.  The girls also narrowly won the open race.  Thank you to all of the parents and fans who came out last night.  We hope to see you at the Palatine Invite and our other dual meets.

Varsity Results - Pirates Sweep Top Four Spots (Splits)

The goal was to take the race out hard in the early going, and our boys succeeded in doing that.  Mat Smoody and Sagar Patel tailed Fremd's Andrew Jacobi by a little leading up to the mile, but they took control soon afterward.  By the 1 1/4 mark, Matt Dettloff had caught Jacobi and they engaged in a spirited dual through most of the next mile.  Dettloff looked great as he was finally able to crack him after the two mile mark. More importantly, his hard work allowed a resurgent Kevin O'Brien to capitalize and catch Jacobi for fourth place.  The boys ended up going 1-2-3-4 with Eddie Lopez seven seconds off of Jacobi in 6th place.  

Overall, this was our best team effort of the year thus far.  I backed off Smoody and Patel in the last mile, but our split was still only 29 seconds: Smoody 15:18, Patel 15:21, Dettloff 15:33, O'Brien 15:34, and Lopez 15:47.  Ulises Reynoso and Alex Mourousias finished as our #6 and #7 men in nice times of 16:08 and 16:09.  In all, we put seven in the top nine for a nice win.  Mourousias battled hard through the two mile until giving way to Fremd's super sophomore Joseph Abebe.  I loved our effort last night, and this win definitely showed that we are improving in the right direction.

A ton of other guys outside of the top seven ran great races as well. John Weatherton is quickly becoming a force on our team, running 16:45 in his first race at Deer Grove.  Everyone continues to be amazed at how well John is doing with only three weeks of cross country training.  Maybe his good runs are an homage to the conditioning program of Palatine basketball coach Ed Molitor.  I don't know how he's doing it, but he is tough.  Right behind him, Paul Kwak turned in another great race, bettering his sophomore PR in his first race of the season.  Lewis Conley also broke 17:00 for the first time after unleashing a ferocious kick to catch Fremd's 5th man.  We managed to put 10 guys inside of Fremd's #5, which shows that our JV is pulling their weight.  Other good runs last night came from Walaid Sehwail and Tim Anderson.  Both finished with the type of intensity we require from all of our guys.  Walaid won his battle, and Tim kept coming at his guy for the entire last 300 before finally giving way right before the chute.  I loved the intensity our guys brought last night.

Here are the comparisons between the times run last night and the times run in the first home meet last year:

Frosh-Soph Results - Sophomores Grab a 1-2-3 Finish (Splits)

Our depth has been outstanding on our frosh-soph team so far, but we have really been looking for our front-runners to step up and do better. Last night, Vlad Novikov, Tom Laskowske, and Juan Perez all broke 14:00 to lead us to victory.  Tom and Juan are both returning from lower leg injuries and are really rounding into form.  Vlad has been training with the varsity, and I am proud of him for grabbing his first ever cross country victory.  Behind these three, Fremd slipped in one guy for fourth before we closed the door by going 5-6-7-8-9.  Freshmen Mike Grobner, Jeff Larson, and Alec Bollman placed 5-6-9 while Justin Olson grabbed seventh and Adam Bethke eighth.  For Adam, this was his first race of the season after a summer stress fracture, and he showed that he will be making a big contribution soon.  Our depth kept going after that pack too. We took 13-14-15-16 to put twelve guys in front of Fremd's #5 man.

Times for the F/S were pretty good last night considering the heat and the tall grass at Deer Grove.  We had six freshmen break 15:00 in their first home meet ever while most of the sophomores either bettered or were close to their all-time bests.  The improvement of the night award goes to Juan Perez.  He ran 17:17 in the first home meet last year, but dropped a 13:57 last night.  What a testament to his hard work!  Justin Olson also ran a 30 second personal best, and Adam Bethke nearly equaled his best freshmen time in his first race back from injury.  

Check out the time comparisons versus the first meet last year:

The freshmen continue to amaze me with their good early runs and great potential.  Here is how the top 10 in this class compare with some of our other classes in their first home meet:

Monday, September 4, 2006 - Boys Varsity Wins at Hinsdale

"Team Spirit - an eagerness to sacrifice personal interests or glory for the welfare of all - is a tangible driving force that transforms individuals who are 'doing their jobs correctly' into an organization whose members are totally committed to working at their highest levels for the good of the group."

Hinsdale Results - Pirate Programs Look Strong

The boys and girls cross country teams enjoyed another successful Saturday at the Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invitational.  As usual, both teams were factors in all of the races.  The program placed 1st in the varsity, 2nd in the sophomore, and 3rd in the freshmen.  The girls finished 2nd in the varsity and 1st in the open.  All of the results are linked in our Results section.

Boys Varsity - Patel and Smoody Lead Boys to Narrow Victory

We use this first race as a gauge each year for where we are at with our training and in our team execution.  The good news is that our times on Saturday were comparable to the three previous trophy teams.  The bad news is that Neuqua Valley nearly ran us down in the third mile of the race.  We won 61-65, but the margin was significantly greater in the middle of the race.  We looked a bit tired, but that takes nothing away from those hard finishing Neuqua boys.  They looked like they wanted it more at the end of the race.

Patel and Smoody got out well in this one, and they immediately matched up with Chris Derrick and Jim Riddle from Neuqua.  Those four separated right away and raced each other throughout.  Smoody dropped just before the two mile mark.  He ran well, but looked heavy.  Sagar, on the other hand, closed with a lot of strength to catch Riddle and run 15:10.  His effort puts him at #20 on the all-time Legge list, tied with state champion Jim Westphal.  Derrick's 15:03 tied him for 12th.  Most of the great runs here have come in conference, regional, and sectional races so those times are clearly outstanding.  Smoody's 15:23 puts him at a tie for 54th.

Behind those two, our team has some work to do.  I am pleased that we executed the race plan.  Our goal was to run hard but relaxed to the 800, and then make a huge mid-race move to put ourselves in position to win at the 1 1/2 and 2 mile marks.  Our boys did that.  All of the top 7 came through in under 5:10 on a tough first mile.  At the 1 1/2 mark, we had four in the top 11 with Eddie Lopez and Matt Dettloff nearing the pack of five guys who were running for the 5th-9th spots.  I thought we might run away and hide, but the early pace and a great Neuqua finish made the end result real tight.  Still, we ran 15:10, 15:23, 16:02, 16:06, 16:14, 16:21, 16:30 in our first real race.  The four and five guys need to get past Eddie and establish themselves as stronger 3rd and 4th men for us to be good.

Behind the top seven, we got great runs from Matt Anderson, Paul Kwak, and John Weatherton.  All of them broke 18:00 with Kwak going from 18:40 last year to 17:17.  Lewis Conley also broke 18:00 to set a monster personal best.  Tim Anderson neared one of his season goals by running 20:09.  Tim we're going to get that 20:00 barrier at Detweiller in two weeks!  Way to go boys.

Boys Sophomore - Pirate Pack Places Second

This was a weird race for me.  Our sophomores started off the summer like madmen, and three of them got hurt along the way.  Bethke sat out and Laskowske and Perez are just now coming back from stress fractures.  When coupled with Vlad being sick as a dog and Neuqua having a ridiculously good sophomore class, we got beaten pretty badly.  Still, we finished second out of 18 with 65 points to Neuqua's 17.  Neuqua was so good that they scored 17 points without even running their potential #1 man, Connor Shields.  Watch out world over the next couple of years.

I was actually pretty happy with our guys.  Tommy ran much better than on Tuesday to put himself in the top ten for 7th place in 17:17.  Our pack then did its job - Novikov 17:31 (11th), Morlock, 17:34 (13th), Perez 17:43 (16th), Olson 18:13 (20th), and Kierys 18:28 (28th).  Eric Colish also ran a PR with a nice 19:11.  Olson again showed a lot of guts, moving up from 37th just past the mile to finish in 20th.  Luke Kierys showed that he is well on his way back to form from his nasty hip tear last track season.  Keep working hard boys and things will turn out well come the end of the season.

Boys Freshmen - Boys Place Third in a Great Showing

After the first invite of the season, I can happily say that this is the best group of freshmen that we have seen at Palatine in a long time.  We placed third behind a tough Glenbard East squad (35 pts) and Neuqua Valley (77 pts) to our 78 pts.  It was close for second, but I am so proud of these guys.  By time, we just blew out each group that I have been involved with in my five years.  We still need to find a front-runner, but the strength of this group is in the pack.  We put seven guys in front of our third best time from last year, and these guys are close.

After I had him go out too fast on Thursday night, Mike Grobner ran smarter and did much better.  He placed 9th to be our team leader.  Behind him, we got medal finishes from Alec Bollman (15th), Mike Abram (15th), Brian Sund (19th), Jeff Larson (21st), Matt Cannon (23rd), and Nat Pearson (28th).  Justin Smith nearly missed a top forty spot with his 45th place finish while Mack Murphy (54th), Steve Repking (61st), Diego Cortez (84th), Mark Long (86th), and Steve Holbach (91st) also had top 100 finishes in the 200 man field.  I'm so excited about the potential in this freshmen class, and I think these boys will be doing big things for our program in the not so distant future.

Picture Updates - Thanks to Marcin Zuberek and Jacob McPherson, I have two picture galleries (Gallery One and Gallery Two) from Saturday's meet.  Both include pictures of the guys and the girls.  Both of these guys proved that they could contribute even though they couldn't run.  Thanks a lot for the pictures guys!!

Mileage Updates - I updated both the Miles for Week 3 and the Mileage Progression for 2006.  The varsity is running significantly more mileage than any previous team I have coached, and we need to have faith that all of that work will pay off in the end.  Make sure to check your weekly mileage and try to make increases in both volume and intensity as the season goes on.

For those of you who kept charts over the summer, bring them to school and we will post your total on the board for everyone to see.  Be proud of your hard work.

Friday, September 1, 2006 - Pirates Win at Buffalo Grove

We got our season started on Thursday night with a nice 18-41 win over Buffalo Grove at Willow Stream park.  Our frosh-soph team lost, though, for only the second time in four years by a score of 28-30.  BG's super freshmen Marr, Gianis, and Galla went 1-2-3 to keep us from having any chance at victory.  Overall, though, we gained experience and will learn from our mistakes and do better in the near future.

Boys Varsity - Palatine Pack Leads the Way

One hallmark of our recent success has been the ability to execute a race plan to perfection.  This group got off to a good start by listening to the coaches and running smart.  We backed off and let a lot of guys into the lead group through the mile.  It was understandably slow (5:40), and our guys were supposed to go at the 1 1/2 mile mark.  The goal then was to run a hard mile and recollect for a group finish.  They executed well.

Patel and Smoody took off at the halfway mark and drew away to win comfortably in times of 16:16 (Smoody) and 16:20 (Patel).  I think Locke from BG was third in 16:32.  We then closed the door pretty quick - Dettloff 16:43 (4th), O'Brien 16:46 (5th), and Reynoso 16:53 (6th).  Ammo and Maher fought each other all the way in with Maher nipping Alex for 7th place.  Both recorded times of 16:54.  Behind them, we got great runs from Paul Kwak, Chris Perry, and Matt Anderson.  All three of those guys were inside of BG's fifth man.  We also sat out Eddie Lopez for this meet so that would have firmed up our front pack a little bit.  The other big surprise of the day was John Weatherton.  He ran a 17:49 in his first meet ever!  The kid plays a lot of basketball, but usually people don't just walk in after five days of practice and run that well.  He will help our JV a great deal this eason.  Mookie Williams also ran well to finish in 18:24 and show that track guys can do CC.

Boys Frosh-Soph - Strong Pack Can't Beat a 1-2-3 Finish

This race was really close even though it wasn't, if that makes any sense at all.  Vlad battled the three freshmen throughout, but they drew away to go 1-2-3 and get the automatic win.  Tim Marr nearly set the BG F/S record in his first race ever, winning in 14:38 and narrowly missing Sean Carlson's 14:36 record.

Behind that 1-2-3 finish, we went 4-5-6-7-8-9-11-12-13.  We put nine guys in front of their fifth, but had no chance of winning.  Alec Bollman ran the best freshman race of the day, finishing in 8th overall to serve as our 5th man.  Sophomores Vlad Novikov, Tommy Laskowske, Colin Morlock, Juan Perez, and Justin Olson all figured in that 4-9 finish.  These young guys are deep, but we will need to start getting business done up top if we want to be a good team on the state scene. 

Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - Mileage Updates, First Meet

Tomorrow the Palatine boys and girls cross country teams run their first meet of the season at Willow Springs park in Buffalo Grove.  Click on the link to the left (in the schedule) if you need directions.  The F/S boys race begins at 4:30, followed shortly by the open girls, the varsity boys, and the varsity girls.  Come see both teams as they start on a journey to another successful season.

Mileage Updates - I put up the Miles for Week 2 as well as the first Mileage Progression for the season.  We are running slightly more than last year, but it doesn't show as much since we had to cancel practice last Thursday due to the lightning predictor going off.  Keep checking your work, boys, and striving to do a little bit more volume and/or intensity each week.  Steady applications of hard work over time lead to greatness!