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

Sunday, September 24, 2006 - Pirates Take Second at Palatine

For the fourth year in a row, the Palatine boys varsity team placed second in the Palatine Invite to Elmhurst York (full results).  The boys ran well, though, narrowly downing current state powers Carl Sandburg (108 pts) and St. Charles North (115 pts) as well as five or six other ranked teams.  The 49-104 loss ends our undefeated season, but our nice run indicates that we are part of an elite group of teams who could win a state trophy at year's end.  Five of our seven guys ran course personal bests in the sloppy conditions with Sagar Patel (14:34, 6th place) and Mat Smoody (14:36, 7th place) finishing in the top ten of an elite field. 

Geneseo's Dan Chenoweth launched a tremendous kick to win in 14:17 over York's Mike Fry (14:17) and Tom Achtien (14:19) and Hersey's Kevin Havel (14:23).  All of those times made the list for top ten on the course and paralleled the times run by other athletes who have made it to Foot Locker Nationals.  This is especially good because most of those times were run on dry and hard courses whereas the athletes had to slog through a muddy and slippery course on Saturday.  Check out the updated All-Time Best list for comparisons to other great athletes.

Sagar Patel and Mat Smoody celebrate 6th and 7th place finishes in the Palatine Invite.

The rest of our team and the girls squad performed great on Saturday as well.  The boys freshmen placed 3rd behind a 7th place finish from Alec Bollman while the boys sophomores placed 6th in a loaded field behind the great runs of Juan Perez (11th, 16:09) and Tom Laskowske (16th, 16:16).  Our junior varsity placed 3rd behind squads from York and Lyons Township.  John Weatherton again finished as our top JV runner.

The girls varsity nearly took down third-ranked Barrington with a much more impressive run than we had last week in Peoria.  Barrington held us off 78-96, but our girls ran much better as a unit behind a great race from sophomore Emma Maslanka.  The girls also placed fourth in the F/S and fourth in the JV Open.

Picture Updates - Marcin Zuberek took 228 quality pictures at the Palatine Invite on Saturday.  Enjoy them in this massive photo gallery!
I also put together four new picture galleries from the Peoria Notre Dame Invite, the Buffalo Grove dual, the Barrington dual, and the Conant dual.  Thanks a lot to sophomore Marcin Zuberek for these shots!

History Updates - I have updated all of the all-time course records plus all of the Palatine Invite history to reflect times run this weekend and in the first two dual meets of the year.  Check the History section.  All of the lists for All-Time Palatine varsity bests, All-Time Palatine frosh-soph bests, and Palatine career bests have been updated.  See where you stack up against the alumni and the older kids!

Mileage Updates - I should have this tomorrow.  Miles were down a bit this week since we couldn't practice on Friday due to severe weather.  Many of you will also start tapering off a bit as the MSL conference meet is quickly approaching.

Palatine Invite - Boys Varsity Places Second Behind York

This was one of the most anticipated boys varsity races in Palatine history, and it paid off with some great action.  York once again proved to be the class of the field with a 49 point finish, but we also ran well and held off worthy challengers in Carl Sandburg and St. Charles North.

Our goal was to keep improving as a unit, and five of our seven guys ran course PRs.  We wanted to attack hard to the two mile again, and I was pleased that we both did that and finished well.  We gave away way fewer places in the last 400 meters than we did last week in Peoria.  Sagar and Smoody got in the right running group from the beginning, getting out with the two top York guys, Havel, Chenoweth, and Robbins.  They got dropped just after the two mile, but hung on to finish 6th and 7th.  OB ran his best race of the season to grab 24th while Dettloff and Eddie placed 32nd and 36th.  Dettloff made an early mistake that cost him later in the race, but he will rebound well in his next race.

Dan Chenoweth showed that he would be a state title contender in any ordinary year.  Unfortunately, he has to run against Jacobs Evan Jager this year.  Still, Chenoweth, York's Mike Fry and Tom Achtien, and Hersey's Kevin Havel demonstrated their elite status.  Anyone who breaks 14:30 on our course has a great chance at being top ten in the state, and most of those who have broken 14:20 have been Foot Locker contenders or finalists.  This fast run is even more impressive when the muddy conditions are factored in.  York's top three were impressive (as expected), and it is clear that both Fry and Achtien are much improved.

Still, we took a lot of positives out of Saturday's race and will continue to build toward the end of the season.  We have placed second to York in our own invite for four straight seasons, but there are a lot of places worse than 2nd in the Palatine Invite.  One of these days...

Check out the improvements from the 2005 race (which was run in far superior conditions, making Saturday's run more impressive):

Palatine Invite - Boys Junior Varsity Runs to Third Place Finish

Our JV guys faced a tall task in facing huge teams from York and Lyons Township, and we finished a solid third to these two schools with 122 points.  First-year sensation John Weatherton led the way with a 15th place finish while Paul Kwak, Kevin LeClair, Matt Anderson, and Lewis Conley rounded out the top five.  Tim Anderson ran 18:20 to set another huge lifetime best.  Many of the other JV guys actually ran a bit slower than last year, but they were still able to grab a top three finish and garner medals for the top seven.

Palatine Invite - Perez and Laskowske Lead the Sophomores

We placed sixth overall in this tough test, and we will need to firm up the #3, #4, and #5 positions before the end of the season if we hope to accomplish our goals.  A bunch of the teams that beat us moved their good freshmen up while we kept ours down so the results are skewed a bit, but I think that all of us expected better than sixth place.

The good news in this race was that both Juan Perez (11th) and Tom Laskowske (16th) took giant steps forward in their return from summer stress fractures.  Juan especially is making an impact.  He has won two consecutive dual meets and set a tough course PR of 16:09 in his first shot at the varsity course.  Tommy finished just behind him in 16:16.  None of our other sophs broke 17:00, and we will have to work to get Vlad and Adam back in their proper positions.  Adam has only been running for three weeks after his own stress fracture in the late summer, and Vlad has not been himself lately as he struggles with grades and a nagging foot injury.  If these guys get healthy, we have a great shot to win the F/S MSL once again.

Palatine Invite - Bollman Takes Freshmen to Third Place

I have loved this freshman class since day one, and their improvement in the last three weeks has been exciting.  Our #1 man at the beginning of the season, Mike Grobner, has had some tough races lately caused by a nasty sinus infection, but Alec Bollman and Jeff Larson have picked up the slack.  Alec really ran well on Saturday, placing 7th to show that he is a future star.  Jeff Larson continues to represent the Larson running tradition proudly.  He placed 16th just ahead of Michael Abram in 17th place.  Michael might have had the single best performance of the entire day.  Other notable efforts came from Nat Pearson, Brian Sund, and Justin Smith as well as Mark Long.  Mark almost broke 15:00!  Paul Raef, Tirth Patel, Ryan Wojdyla, Jake Bogdanowicz, Alvaro Colin, and Kyle McCall continue to improve as well.

Conant and Barrington Duals - Report coming soon...

Monday, September 18, 2006 - Varsity Wins at Peoria

For the third time in four years, the boys varsity won the prestigious Peoria Notre Dame Invite (full results).  This year's edition was an exciting race which saw the Pirates win in a squeaker 101-102 over MSL rival Schaumburg.  Both teams defeated the consensus #2 team in the state Sandburg, who placed third with 121 points (although they did hold out one of their best guys).  Naperville North was fourth with 133 while Lincoln-Way East was fifth with 147.  Conference rival Hersey placed sixth with 241 points. 

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.

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

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.