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

Monday, October 23 - Pirates Advance to Sectionals

Above: We don't have a Regional plaque to celebrate, but I just got the MSL pictures and it was a ton of fun to celebrate that big win with the entire team.  Way to go boys!

We did not have our best race of the year at the IHSA Regional at Wheeling, and the team will be out to rectify that weak showing as the full squad returns to action on Saturday in the IHSA Sectional.  The team we ran performed poorly and a young and talented Hersey squad nipped us 40-44 to hand us only our second loss of the season.  The race was not pretty, but we made the right decisions about who to run.  Kevin O'Brien, our normal #3-#4 man, was held out due to a minor injury while Eddie Lopez, our #5-#6 man, sat out the meet due to a team suspension.  It felt bad to lose, but this will help us regain our focus heading into the last two weeks.  I railed pretty bad on the guys after the race because our junky week of practice confirmed my instinct - that we were not going to be ready to get the job done on Saturday.

Still, we put three guys on the All-Regional team.  The trio of Mat Smoody (3rd), Sagar Patel (4th), and Matt Dettloff (5th) all placed in the top five while Alex Mourousias had another solid race to finish in 9th.  Our problem was our lack of depth.  Tom Laskowske placed 23rd in his first significant varsity competition ever, but it was not nearly enough and cost us way too many team points.  Considering that OB has beaten Mourousias in every race this year, I feel that we would have had victory well in hand had I risked it and ran him.  Hopefully playing it safe will pay off in the next two weekends.  Eddie also would have helped a great deal, but this loss was exactly the wakeup call we needed to get our focus up for the next two weeks.  As usual, the doubters are out and it will be just how we like it heading into the big ones - us against the world.

Picture Updates - I put up two new galleries courtesy of Marcin Zuberek.  He has a ton of girls and guys pictures from both the MSL Conference and the IHSA Regional.

Mileage Updates - I haven't added the miles for Week 10 yet, but the final miles for the rest of team and the progression through week nine are done.  Check out the Week 9 miles as well as the season progression.

Sunday, October 15 - Palatine Wins the MSL for 4th Year in a Row

My great week as a father and coach ended with the boys varsity winning our fourth consecutive MSL title.  This now gives us five titles in school history to go along with our 19th MSL division title.  The boys ran well, but really demonstrated that our consistent race is good enough to win in big meets.  Our 1-5 split was 45 seconds, and both our #3 and #4 were within 28 seconds of our #1 runner.  Those tightened up splits bode well for this team in the big meets to come.  We scored 42 points to outdistance Schaumburg (56), Hersey (102), Prospect (113), and Hoffman Estates (134).  Our five teams are in the driver's seat with respect to getting out of the Schaumburg Sectional. 

Above: The Palatine varsity and coaches celebrate our 4th straight MSL title. 
Check out those faces on Sagar and Eddie.

We fared well in the F/S and Junior Varsity races too, but neither team won and extended our streak of winning all three races to four straight years.  The F/S ran well up top, but lost to a couple of teams loaded with great freshman.  Both Buffalo Grove and Prospect have a slew of freshmen who broke 5:00 in the 8th grade, and it looks like we will be playing catch-up to that talent for the next couple of years.  Still, the team scores went Buffalo Grove 54, Prospect 54, and Palatine 63.  We didn't lose by much and were without the services of Vlad Novikov and Luke Kierys, two of our injured sophomores.  In the JV race, we placed second to Prospect by a score of 23-43.  We put six guys All-Conference though, and we had a number of good races.  Congratulations boys!  You all competed hard and ended up with three solid team finishes.

History Updates - I updated all of the MSL lists, including All-Conference performers, Individual Champions, Varsity Team Champions, Division Champions, F/S Champions, and Junior Varsity Champions.

Boys Varsity - Five Pirates Earn All-Conference Honors

Individually, we had five varsity athletes finish All-Conference.  Mat Smoody (15:30, Jr) and Sagar Patel (15:38, Sr) led the way with 3rd and 4th place finishes.  This was our fourth consecutive year with at least two runners in the top five.  Behind them, Matt Dettloff (15:55, Sr) ran his best race of the season to seize 8th place overall and pull within 17 seconds of Sagar.  His continued improvement is really making us a dangerous team.  Kevin O'Brien (15:58, Jr) shrugged off a 27th place near miss in last year's meet to place 10th.  OB really made some good moves to maintain his gap on the main pack and secure a 10th place finish.  Alex Mourousias (16:15, Jr) and Eddie Lopez (16:29, Jr) ran a great team race.  At the two mile, I had them in 15th and 22nd.  They faded a bit to 17th and 28th, but both ran our race plan to perfection and put themselves in contention with their competition.  Alex really competed well and proved once again that he is back all the way from his missed track season of last year.  Eddie showed a ton of heart, but he was disappointed in not being able to finish off his great race.  He will finish that effort in the next couple of weeks.  Senior captain Ulises Reynoso filled out our roster, placing 54th in his first varsity MSL.

Boys Frosh-Soph - Pirates Take Third, Have Five All-Conference

Tom Laskowske (16:52, So) and Juan Perez (16:58, So) both earned their spots on the state roster, and Tommy may have run himself onto the varsity.  His time would have been good for 38th place in the big race.  Tommy and Juan placed 2nd and 4th overall.  Juan moved up to 4th after finishing 78th last year!  Other All-Conference athletes included Alec Bollman (16th in 17:31), Fr), Adam Bethke (18th in 17:35, So), and Jeff Larson (23rd in 17:42, Fr).  Freshman Michael Grobner narrowly missed All-Conference, finishing 27th in 17:52.

Boys Junior Varsity - Boys Finish Second to Prospect

In the Junior Varsity race, we placed second behind a dominating performance from the Prospect JV.  They scored 23 to our 43 points.  We hung tough to about the 2 1/4 mark, but they really extended their lead in the last 3/4 of a mile to run away with a 1-2-3 finish.  John Weatherton was our top finisher in 4th place, and he led an All-Conference contingent that included Captain Kevin LeClair (5th in 17:08, Sr), Paul Kwak (9th in 17:18, Jr), Lewis Conley (11th in 17:22, Jr), Matt Anderson (14th in 17:34, Sr), and Andrew Kretschmar (18th in 17:42, Jr).

Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - Meet Madeline Grace Quick

I did my best coaching of the season last night to help my wife get through labor and give birth to our new daughter, Madeline Grace Quick.  Maddie Grace was born last night at 11:19 pm, and both the baby and mom are doing well and resting comfortably at St. Alexius.  It was an amazing experience, and I am so happy that both of them are healthy.  The baby is beautiful and has nice dark hair and pretty blue eyes.  Wish us luck as we begin our journey as parents!

Above: The Quick family pose together after the birth of Madeline Grace.

Below: Baby Quick takes a well-earned rest after her tough run toward the light.

Monday, October 9, 2006 - Picture and Baby Updates

Well everyone, tomorrow is going to be the day for my wife and I.  Our doctor wants to induce labor so we should be parents by some time tomorrow afternoon or night.  Wish us luck and good health!

I put up one final photo gallery from Marcin.  He took a ton of great pictures from the St. Charles Best Invite.  I'll be out of school Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but I may be at practice on Thursday afternoon.  Barring any complications, I will also be able to go to the MSL meet on Saturday so watch you guys run like champions.  For many of you seniors, this will be the last time I get to see you race.  Let's make it a good one.

Above: Andrew Bollman celebrates his first career CC victory in style.

Saturday, October 7, 2007 - St. Charles and Crete Updates

We had another eventful weekend at St. Charles as our boys ran well and had a great time.  I continue to be on baby watch heading into the MSL Conference week so I am not sure if I will see everyone there or not.  Any way you cut it, it is shaping up to be a great week, and many of our guys are rounding into peak form at the right time of year.  Our JV guys took 3rd today in the varsity section of the St. Charles Best Invite while our F/S ran to a thrilling 51-56 win over Carl Sandburg.  Lastly, but certainly not least, our men in the open race came out with a domination victory, placing 14 guys in the top 20 to win with 19 points.  Our varsity sat out today, per our usual schedule, but they will return to action next weekend at the MSL Conference meet and will be looking for a 4th consecutive conference title.  We hope to see everyone at Busse next Saturday.

Above: The varsity boys and the coaches pose with the 1st place Crete Monee trophy.

Result and Mileage Updates - I put a ton of links to recent race results in the Results section.  Our last two races have been posted on Kompusport.com.  I also updated the Week 8 miles and the Progression.

Picture Updates - Marcin again took a bunch of pictures so look for those on Monday.  I have a couple other CDs of pics to add, but I can't seem to find them right now.

St. Charles Best Invite - JV Guys Unleash Total Domination

Boys Open Race - Andrew Bollman Grabs his First Win Ever

Above: Our open warriors celebrate with an actual trophy for once - the sign that Kyle McCall won in the Dick Pond raffle!

The ridiculous thing about putting 14 guys in the top 20 is that six of our junior varsity guys ran on the varsity level for us.  If we had run all of our JV guys in the open, we would have been looking at a 1-9 finish.  Still, we ran amazing, and I was incredibly proud of both Andrews.  Kretschmar led the race at about the 1 1/2 mile mark going into the woods, and I expected him to come away with the victory.  Instead, Andrew Bollman moved great in the back loop and surged to victory in the last 800 meters.  To see him win a CC race coming back from a stress fracture was an unbelievable feeling for me as a coach.  Andrew has worked hard for four years, and I was incredibly proud of him.

Behind Andrew, Colin Morlock managed to nail Kretschmar right by the finish, but Kretsch held on to get third.  Colin ran well, but this race was a huge one for Kretsch, who has been battling injury as of late.  This race showed that he is feeling better and starting to get fresh for the MSL meet.  Behind those three, we placed another trio of guys in 7th, 8th, and 9th.  Brian Cepuran unloaded a great race for 7th while Chris Wojdyla ran his best race of the year to place 9th.  In between them, Matt "The Red" Baran had his best race of his career, placing 8th and winning his first medal ever.  Mom, sister, and grandma and grandpa were very proud!

It could take a lot of paragraphs to write about this race, but I'll go for it anyway.  They gave 20 medals, and our guys also placed 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 20.  Places 11-16 were all freshmen - Mike Abram, Nat Pearson, Steve Repking, Brian Sund, and Justin Smith.  Repking had a remarkable race and flashed some of the talent that I know he has.  Our next pack included Bryan Perry (Sr), Kevin Meehan (So), and Jacob Starcevich (So).  Meehan has really been coming on of late and impressed again with another solid race.

I could write for the rest of the night about all the PRs in this race, but it suffices to say that this was one of our more impressive races of the season.  They combined the freshman open and junior varsity open races this year, and it was neat to see all of our guys get to compete together.

Boys Frosh-Soph- Strong Kick by Alec Bollman Seals Victory

Above: The F/S pose after a close win.

We were going to run Tommy and Juan on the varsity level, but we decided to scrap that plan when Eddie's leg started to hurt and Ulises came down sick.  I'm glad we did because it led to a 51-56 victory over Sandburg.  Tommy continues to round into form, and he grabbed 2nd place in a 16:22 PR.  Juan placed 6th in 16:36.  We still have too big of a gap between 2nd and 3rd man heading into the MSL meet, but the rest of our pack was pretty tight.  Adam Bethke and Alec Bollman placed 12th and 13th while Jeff Larson was our 5th man in 18th place.  Mike Grobner continued his return from sickness to place 20th and earn a medal.

We picked up a lot of key points in this race.  Tommy kicked away from Sandburg's #2 guy (who placed third) to prevent a two point swing, Alec passed Sandburg's 4th man and two others in the last 150 meters to gain a four point swing, and MIke Grobner bumped their 5th man to add another point.  With everyone doing their jobs, we earned a 5 point win.

Boys Varsity - Mourousias Leads with 10th Place Finish

Above: In true superhero style, our varsity demonstrates the Power of the Fist.

Each year we put the junior varsity in a tough position at this meet by running them against other varsity squads, but we usually respond well.  This year, we put our normal #5/#6 man Alex Mourousias in there since he sat out Crete with an illness, and he led the way with a 10th place finish.  He went out way too hard in the first 300 meters, going out right next to Mark Battista from LWC, and he was in 3rd place heading into the woods.  Unfortunately, the energy he wasted on a too fast start came back to haunt him in the last 1 1/2 miles, and he finished 10th.  Still, he ran aggressively and made the right kind of mistake.

Behind Alex, our JV guys packed up well and got another great race from John Weatherton.  John placed 16th to secure a medal while Kevin LeClair placed 20th to grab the last award spot.  The rest of our guys finished 27, 31, 32, and 33.  We had a 32 second 1-6 split on the guys that will run in the JV conference meet next weekend.  Hopefully, we can get a great race from a couple of other guys in that back pack and win another MSL title.  Overall, we placed 3rd overall in the varsity team competition, finishing with 91 points and only seven points out of Batavia's 84 point 2nd place total.

Crete-Monee Pow Wow - Pirates Run to 3rd Straight Title

It perhaps says something about the diminished stature of this meet when we win it, and I don't bother to even post about it.  The meet is atrophying badly, mostly due to course changes and some inept management decisions.  The course was new again this year due to the construction of a new high school on the site of the old course.  My complaint is less about the new woods loop, and more about the 45 degree turns sprinkled along the course, especially the one at the finish.  The course is an accident waiting to happen for a good team, and this will be our final year at the Crete-Monee Pow Wow.

The good news was that we became the first team ever to win the Pow Wow in three straight seasons.  Despite the meet's diminshed stature, that is still a good thing.  We scored 20 points to outdistance state-ranked teams New Trier and Lincolnway East.  We also placed five guys in the top 11 of the JV open and would have won that had it been scored.  Matt Dettloff won Flight Four to be our only flight winner, but his glory was robbed by an insidious plot that ended up with co-captain and supposed friend Kevin LeClair getting announced with the win at the awards ceremony.  LeClair's sick plot also got the names switched in the official results, and he will probably go down in history as the Flight 4 winner for 2006.  And you guys are friends...  Afer Detty's great race, we had three other guys place second (Smoody in Flight 2, Eddie in Flight 5, and Juan in Flight 7).  Sagar Patel placed 4th in a tough Championship Flight while OB was 3rd in Flight 3 and Ulises was 6th in Flight 6.

Palatine was an original team at the Crete-Monee Pow Wow, and it is a tough decision to walk away from a 37 year history in this meet.  We had fifteen individual flight winners over the years, but never had an individual win the Championship Flight.  We placed in the top five 19 times as a team, including 6 champions, 3 second placers, 6 third placers, 3 fourth placers, and 1 fifth placer.

In the 2006 edition, we managed to run well despite being a bit drained mentally and physically from the tough dual meet with Schaumburg.  I was proud of how our guys raced hard despite our laid-back attitude.  Most of them found out in some way how important it is to have teammates in a race, and I anticipate some much better racing in the near future for our top guys.

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

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.

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.

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.