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.

Above: Coach Quick surrounded by recent alumni he has coached.  They include (top) Matt Morlock, Matt Mossm Brian Brodeur, Brian McLain, Tim Brodeur, Matt Kuilokwski, (middle) James Macatangay, Don Macatangay, Mike Krueger, Tim Larson, (bottom) Alex Soto, Kevin Yee, Brian Dankowski, Glenn Morris, Eric Repking, and Mike Nigliaccio.

Above: Dettloff literally runs out of his body in the Wheaton Warrenville South 1600.  Your soul just escapes when you drop a seven second PR down to 4:22.

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:

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.

Highlights from Five Team Meet: