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

Thursday, October 5 - Miles and Workout Updates

Well, it is getting down to the nitty gritty with my wife's pregnancy so this may be the last update for awhile.  The due date is a week from today, which also happens to be the night before the MSL Conference meet.  Whatever happens, I'll have the boys ready to run, and they will hopefully have prepared me for fatherhood.  Meri and I are psyched to become parents, and we can't wait to bring our new little girl to her first state cross country meet in November!

Miles Updates - I updated the Week 7 miles as well as the Progression.

Workout Updates - We did our once a season 3 x 1600 workout today, and the results were very promising.  The weather was much worse than last year, but we still managed to run times on par with last year's team.  Last year, the temps were in the mid-60s with no wind.  Tonight it was blustery and cool.  Smoody and Sagar ran 13:58 and 14:02 up top to nearly match the best ever - Steve Finley's 13:54 from last year.  Behind them, Dettloff recorded a 14:27 to put himself in good company.  Most all guys that have broken 14:30 in this workout have been top 50 if not better.  The rest of the top seven (excluding Eddie who sat out the third rep with a tight leg) all broke 15:00.  Way to go boys!

Friday, September 29, 2006 - Palatine Wins MSL West, Crete Monee

Above: Our second consecutive undefeated class poses after winning the MSL West.  These seniors finished 24-0 in their high school careers.

On Thursday night, the boys won the MSL West title for the 5th consecutive year after squeaking out a thrilling 27-28 dual meet win over Schaumburg.  This was certainly the best dual meet that I have ever been a part of, and it was wonderful to see two evenly matched and hungry teams go head to head like that.  It took the best race ever by a Palatine team at Deer Grove East to win, and that is a tribute both to our kids and the quality of competition.  We put four runners under 15:00 for only the second time ever, and Mat Smoody (14:23) and Sagar Patel (14:24) posted the 3rd and 4th best Palatine times ever behind only Steve Finley.

The win moves our dual meet winning streak to 31 in a row.  We have not lost in MSL dual meet action since Schaumburg beat us in 2001.  I know the alumni are proud of this record, and it was thrilling to see our guys pull it out for them and each other.  Check out the updates in our History section.  I updated the All-Time best list, the Palatine best list and career list, and the Palatine F/S best list as well as the Division Champions page.  Spain's time was the #7 ever run while Smoody and Sagar put times in at 12th and 15th.

Above: The entire team poses after our big win.  The varsity finished 6-0 on the season, going 5-0 in MSL duals.  The frosh-soph went 5-1 on the season with a 5-0 record in the MSL West.  Their only loss of the season was in the first meet to Buffalo Grove.  Congratulations boys!

Picture Updates - I put up another picture gallery courtesy of Marcin Zuberek.  It has about 90 pics of the Schaumburg meet.

Mileage Updates - I finally updated Week 6 miles and the Progression.

Boys Varsity - Boys Run to 5th Consecutive MSL West Title

The intensity and level of excellence in this race was unbelievable.  It could have gone either way, and I would have been disappointed had we lost, but only with the result and not our effort.  We did everything we could to win and that would have been enough.  Fortunately, Kevin O'Brien (pictured above) found enough speed in the sprint to hold off Schaumburg's Jim Link, and that was the difference in the meet.

Schaumburg beat us in the 1-2-3 and 4 positions two weeks ago in Peoria so we knew that we would need to win a couple match-ups to win the race.  Their #1 man, Mike Spain, is tough as can be while their #2, Jon Roberts, has a ton of talent and is getting better every race we see him.  Our goal was to get after Spain and at least split them.  Smoody and Sagar took the race out very hard, hitting the mile in 4:45.  The two mile split was the impressive part.  Spain, Smoody, and Sagar hit the two mile at 9:39.  In a dual meet!  Spain then proceeded to pull away, but a good kick from Smoody made it look a little closer.  Spain won in 14:18 and was quickly followed in by Smoody and Patel.

This hard early pace pulled the rest of the race out fast too.  O'Brien and Dettloff wanted to make a hard move in the second mile, and both of them did so.  OB surged ahead of Link and Rutz just past the mile, and Dettloff got by both of them in the Twilight Zone.  To Link's credit, he absorbed these moves and came right back after both of our guys.  He flew by Dettloff at 300 meters to go and took off after OB.  After seeing the speed of his kick, I figured he would get OB, and we'd have to find the points elsewhere.  Thank goodness I was wrong!  He pulled even with OB briefly, but Kevin launched a kick of his own to secure 5th place and the meet.  Dettloff recovered to finish in 7th.

At this point, I thought that OB was going to get passed so I turned to our fifth man.  Eddie Lopez had an off day, but the strength of our team showed in the heroic run that Alex Mourousias put together.  After missing all of last spring's track season, Alex has been coming along slowly but surely.  I had been awaiting a breakout race, and boy did he deliver.  He made a powerful move past the mile to gap their 5th man, and he maintained that until 300 meters to go.  Only a great kick by Eric Seimetz from Schaumburg kept him from bumping their 5th man.  Check this out - Ammo dropped from 15:42 in the Palatine Invite to 15:15 in a dual meet.  What a great effort!  Here are the results:

The last great thing about this race was that it was a total team effort.  Our junior varsity guys ran great up and down the line, and we set a ton of course personal bests.  The triumvirate of Chris Perry, Kevin LeClair, and Lewis Conley packed up to set PRs in 16:10, 16:12, and 16:13.  John Weatherton and Paul Kwak came in right at 16:20 to also set their bests.  The list goes on and on.  Congratulations guys! 

Boys Frosh-Soph - Young Guns Finish MSL West Undefeated

Our top sophomores had an injury-plagued summer, and I have been waiting for our front-runners to come around.  This race was evidence that our top guys are coming around right when we need them - in the championship phase of the season.  We sat out Vlad Novikov with a bad foot, but his teammates picked each other up.  Tom Laskowske and Juan Perez finished 1-2 with both of them running 13:11.  Those times were good for 3rd and 4th on our All-Time F/S list.

Behind them, our guys really packed it up.  Alec Bollman continued to improve, running a great freshman time of 13:35, and Adam Bethke put together his best race of the season at the right time to run 13:38.  Justin Olson and Luke Kierys then closed the door in 13:40 and 13:41.  All of these times make our best ever list, and I am very proud of the perseverance shown by these young men.  Adam worked his tail off to rebound from an August stress fracture, and Luke missed all summer rehabbing a nasty hip injury from last track season.  To top everything off, Colin Morklock (13:46) and Jeff Larson (13:53) also broke the 14:00 barrier.  We have rarely come close to having eight guys under that time in a season, much less a single race.  Good job guys!

Behind these other guys, we had a ton of record-breaking performances.  Michael Abram ran 14:03 to drop some time while the freshman trio of Mike Grobner, Justin Smith, and Nat Pearson finished in 14:17, 14:22, and 14:27.  It is nice to see Mike returning to form after a recent sinus infection, and Justin just seems to keep coming on.  I was also really proud of Matt Baran and Kevin Meehan.  Baran set a huge PR in 14:31 coming off of a knee injury, and Meehan ran his best race as a Pirate.  Kevin is rounding into shape and starting to become a factor!  Jacob Starcevich (14:42), Mark Long (14:48), Matt Cannon (14:54), and Eric Colish (14:59) all broke 15:00 for the first time as well.  I'm not sure how many of our other guys PR'd yet, but I am pretty sure that Holbach, Tirth, and Raef all ran their best times ever since they all came close to breaking 16:00.  Way to go everyone.

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.

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.

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):

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.