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

Tuesday, May 2, 2007 - More Picture Galleries

Check out the second Palatine Relays picture gallery as well as a small gallery from the Wheaton Warrenville South ABC meet.  I am also working on a full story of the Relays from start to finish with a ton of pictures.

Monday, April 30, 2007 - First Picture Gallery

There is still much more to come, but here is the first picture gallery.  These pictures are from Mr. and Mrs. Smoody as well as my own camera.  Enjoy!  The full story will come later.

Sunday, April 29, 2007 - Pirates Wins MSL West, Palatine Relays

What a week.  On Monday, we won our first MSL West Division title since 1997.  On Saturday, we won the 75th Palatine Relays with a stellar team performance in front of hundreds of Palatine alumni from all eras of both the boys and girls programs.  I will provide a full story of the meet with pictures when I get them developed and scanned, but I think the two major highlights of the meet belong to Mat Smoody.

First, he broke a 28 year-old record in the 800 meters.  Actually, he shattered Dave Kennedy's record of 1:53.2, running 1:51.8 to best it by 1.4 seconds.  He also bested his Palatine Relays record of 1:55.0, which was set last year when he was a sophomore.  A while back, I told Mat that I would buy him a steak dinner if he went out in 54 seconds for the first 400 meters of his 800 meter race.  I knew that if he paced himself properly, he would deliver a performance worth celebrating.  His splits on Saturday: 26.9, 54.9 (28.0), 1:22.4 (27.5), 1:51.8 (29.4).  Check out this You Tube video of his race that Soto took.  Mat's time ranks him 9th nationally on the current Dyestat lists and is the top junior time in the nation by two tenths of a second.  What a performance.

Second, the meet was getting close near the end between us and Bolingbrook, and it became apparent that we were going to need to either beat them or be within two places of them in the 4 x 400 relay.  We had to pull Tim Williams from the lineup after his hamstrings tightened up so we went with the order of Terrence Thigpen to Telly Halloran to Gerald Hutton to Smoody.  Terrence is running on a healing stress fracture in his foot and had already run the open 400 so using him was a gamble.  He ran well, delivering a 51.5 opening split and putting us in the lead.  Telly then came out firing in his second 400 of the day.  He held off several challenges in the last 100 to keep us right on the lead.  He ran 52.5.  Things started getting tight on the 3rd leg as Barrington's Nick Mageira, the open 400 champion, blew them out to a big lead, and Gerald Hutton struggled to keep us in second over Jacobs and Bolingbrook.  He ran a lifetime PR of 51.8 to keep it close, but the outcome looked in doubt with Brian Leseur of Barrington anchoring for them.  He placed 5th or 6th in the state 400 meters last year before suffering a nasty ankle injury during football season. Still, he is a formidable foe.  Smoody had just come off a second place run in the 1600 and was up against not only a tough Bolingbrook anchor, but also state cross country champion Evan Jager.  Smoo kicked it into gear down the backstretch to get by the Bolingbrook guy, and it became evident at 250 that Jager's two sub-4:20 1600 meter efforts had deadened his legs.

Now let me tell you this.  The most iconic moment in the history of the Palatine Relays is Bill Bahnfleth's closing leg in the 1966 meet to catch York's Al Janulis and seal a two-way tie for victory between York and Palatine.  Bahnfleth won the state 400 meters in 1966 and 1967, and I had never met him until Saturday.  He came back to celebrate 75 years of this event.  Joe Johnson was there, the man who started the Palatine programs on their roads to greatness.  Ex-state record holder Mark Visk was there.  So were Bob Watson, 1989 state cross country champion, and Gordon Dreyfuss, state champion in the 1600 in the 1960s..  So were Claudia Becque, Kristen Abrahamson, Julie Justmann-Trout, Alex Maldonado, Elisa Currins, Jenny Monaco-Parks, and Carolyn Currins, members of an unprecedented eight year run of state championship or runner-up finishes in girls cross country.  Everyone who has made Palatine track and cross country great was there, and it made for a moment of magic.  Smoody starting sniffing that he might catch Leseur about 140 meters from the line.  The entire field full of people shifted to the last 100 meter straightaway as Smoody came driving through a tunnel of fans, striving now to make a memory rather than win a race.  He hit the last 25 meters driving and caught Leseur right at the tape to win the race and the hearts of everyone in attendance.  It was a moment, and I totally lost it.  I always tell our boys that the 4 x 400 is the best race in all of track, and to have one of the greatest moments in the 75 year history of this celebrated meet virtually recreated for all to see was a special moment that I will never forget.  It was magical.

Sunday, April 22, 2007 - Tons of Results, Pictures, Etc.

We had three meets this week and did well in all of them as we prepare for the Division Meet tomorrow and the 75th Palatine Relays next Saturday.  It's going to be a great week for Palatine track and field.  We placed third on Friday night in the high-powered Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Invite.  We ran well, but had many spots for improvement.  On Wednesday, our F/S team steamrolled the competition at the Libertyville F/S Relays, and we also won a triangular meet with Conant and Elk Grove on Tuesday.  More importantly, we started to compete with much greater intensity and demonstrated great support for each other in the process.  Let's get ready for a great week,

Pictures Update - Eric Colish used Colin Morlock's camera to take some nice pictures of the Five Team Meet.  Check out the photo gallery.

Performance Lists - The 2007 Lists have been updated with performances from the three meets this week plus the team time trial on Saturday.  We are now up to 20 guys under 5:00.

Highlights from the Wheaton South Red Grange Invite:

Highlights from the Libertyville F/S Relays:

Highlights from Conant, Elk Grove Triangular:

Sunday, April 15, 2007 - Five Team Meet Results

I know it has been awhile since I gave a substantive update.  We have had a lot of meets here early in the outdoor season, and we have another three this week.  All of a sudden the season is in a quick downward slide to the finish.  A week from Monday is the MSL West Division meet at Palatine, and a week from this coming Saturday is the 75th edition of the Palatine Relays.  We hope a ton of alumni and parents show up for this huge event.

Check out the updated PR Performance Lists.  A picture gallery will follow in the next couple of days after the guys get me a CD.

Highlights from Five Team Meet:

Friday, March 30 - Manderson Classic Results, Train Trip Pics

Manderson Classic Results and Team Pictures

Check out this year's results along with the pictures and results from the first three editions of the Manderson Classic.

1st Place - The Beach Boys - 27 points (Captains Matt Dettloff, Chris Perry, and Kevin O'Brien)

2nd Place - The Army of Juan - 35 points (Captains Justin Olson, Juan Perez, Adam Bethke, and Vlad Novikov)

3rd Place - Waldo's Hoes - 43 points (Captains Terrence Thigpen, John Weatherton, and Omar Herrera)

4th Place - Finoody Knights, Part II - 48 points (Captains Eddie Lopez, Mat Smoody, and Mike Grobner)

5th Place - CK Waffers - 57 points (Captains Alex Mourousias and
Sagar Patel)

State Meet Recap - Palatine Pirates Place 6th at 2006 State Finals

The boys were relaxed heading into the state meet after winning the Schaumburg Sectional the week before without the services of junior All-Conference runner Kevin O'Brien.  Kevin had struggled for two weeks with an IT band problem, but he was determined to run at state and be at his best.  His presence certainly gave us a lift, and it was good to have him back in the lineup.  I worried that the time off had ruined his sharp edge, but OB is a tough one, and I knew that he would try his best. 

We broke from Box 29, which put us right in the thick of things.  You can see from the picture above that we were right next to York and three boxes away from St. Charles North.  Evan Jager, the eventual champion, and Kevin Havel, the runner-up, were also nearby.  Our plan was to get out at the half in the times that we had discussed.  Smoody and Sagar targeted a 2:15 split while the rest of the guys dialed in on the 2:18-2:22 range.  Times were blazing at the 800.  All of our guys came through fast and still seemed to be buried.  Smoody hit the 800 in 2:12 and all five of our guys were through at or under 2:20.

The first mile of the race was totally smoking.  Smoody and Sagar hit the mile in 4:40 and 4:41, Dettloff hit 4:49, OB was 4:50, Alex and Eddie were 4:56, and Tommy was 5:08.  We had trained all year to run these splits and still be ready to maintain for the rest of the race.  The problem this year was that other teams were ready as well.  At the 1 1/2 mark, I knew that we were running fast, but we were not in great position.  I felt that gnawing feeling that a CC coach only gets when there is a gap too big in the lineup.  Sagar went by the 1 1/2 in 9th place with Smoody in tow around 14th, but the gap to Dettloff felt big, and it was.  OB was ahead of Mourousias, but he was nowhere near his normal running position with Dettloff.  The last three years, I had felt an amazing feeling at that point of the race, but this year I was filled with trepidation.  We had gone out fast, and our guys were still buried.

At the two mile mark, our splits were still great.  Smoody (9:42), Sagar (9:43), Dettloff (9:59), OB (10:09), and Alex (10:11) were in solid position to bring home a trophy.  The problem was that we hadn't finished well all year in the final kick, and OB was not in his normal running position.  We squeaked out wins all year with OB and Dettloff running together and our 5th man doing his best to stay within 45-60 seconds of our #1 guy.  At state we ran with two fifth men due to OB's injury. 

At the 2 1/2 mark, Smoody had passed Sagar and was in 10th place, looking like he could charge into the top 7-8.  I hoped that he could kick, but in all of Smoody's best CC races he has little left at the end.  In the picture above, you can see him kicking with Deerfield's Noble Schermerhorn in a finishing battle for 11th place.  Mat would end up 12th in a remarkable time of 14:35, the 4th best in Palatine history.  Sagar hung on for dear life after his 9:43 opening two miles, and he managed to keep 14th place and just hold off a ton of kicking opponents.  With two All-State finishes in the bag, I thought we might be home free.  The problem was that all of the contenders also had at least two great guys up top: York (8, 9 ,15), St. Charles North (26, 28), Schaumburg (17,23), and Neuqua Valley (3, 20).  In essence, our front runners earned us no points against the three teams that would eventually trophy.

The battle thus went down to the depth guys on the top teams, and my heart sunk as I saw streams of guys going by all of our 3-4-5 runners.  I am convinced that we lost a trophy from the 600 meter mark into the finish.  Gobs of guys were passing Dettloff and Mourousias, and OB had a lot of trouble in the last mile and didn't look as sharp as usual.  I wanted to believe that we had trophied, but I knew that York had beaten us and I thought that Sandburg had kicked past us heading into the finish.  When I saw Coach Macnider from Schaumburg, I got more down because he was at the finish line and knew that his kids had run great.  All year we had beaten Schaumburg, but they always came back on us and made it close with great kicks.  Those great kicks won them a trophy in the last 400 meters of the race.  When coupled with the great run by St. Charles North and the solid pack race of Waubonsie Valley, that put us 6th in the state. 

Our top five placed 12th (14:35), 14th (14:41), 66th (15:12), 98th (15:24), and 108th (15:31).  In most years those times would win a trophy, but Illinois is just too tough now.  Six of my seven guys ran PRs, but we got smoked in the last 800 by a bunch of teams that we had beaten during the year.  I am incredibly proud of this team, and not disappointed with our finish.  The only problem that lingers in my head is that we beat Schaumburg four times, and they got third in the state.  This finish is obviously to their credit, but it hurts a bit more when you know that a team who won a trophy was beatable.  We just didn't get it done when it mattered most. 

I'll remember the 2006 season as a transitional one when we tried to move on from the athletes who established the distance running renaissance at Palatine.  Glenn Morris was at the core of this rebirth, and it was a challenge to move on without him and prove that we could be champions still.  In the end, we won the MSL West, the MSL, and the Sectional, placed 6th in the State, and had two athletes earn
All-State honors.  Most programs would take that any day of the week, and our goal in the future is to continue to give ourselves opportunities to win the big one.  It is tough to win a state trophy in Illinois, and our athletes are dedicated to keeping the program up to the expectations set by former and recent athletes.  We will be great again next year with five athletes returning, and the state will be ultra-competitive.  Let's hope that we can keep training hard and being good people.  The results and the fun will then take care of themselves.

Above: The Quick family poses after the 2006 IHSA State finals.  Meredith is conspicuously absent because she was home taking care of Madeline Grace, who was born just three weeks prior to the race.