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

Saturday, May 19, 2007 - Pirates Advance to State, College Signings

We performed exactly to expectations at the Palatine Fremd Sectional on Friday night.  That means that all of the people that we expected to qualify got through to the state meet, but we did not have any of our bubble athletes or relay teams make it.  We placed third as a team behind Elmhurst York and Barrington. We qualified Sagar Patel in the 3200 run, Mat Smoody in the 800 run, Matt Dettloff in the 1600 run, Tim Williams in the long jump and triple jump, and the quartet of Terrence Thigpen, Tim Williams, Chris Norman, and Mat Smoody in the 4 x 400 relay.  Smoody coasted to an easy-looking 1:53.0 to win the 800, but he absolutely dropped the hammer in the 4 x 400 to run 48.1, send us to state, win the race, and deliver the #2 time in school history in 3:20.0. 

College Signings - Dettloff to Eastern Illinois, Patel to Rend Lake

I'll get to the full update in a minute, but I first wanted to congratulate Matt Dettloff and Sagar Patel on signing their National Letters of Intent this past Thursday morning.  It gives me great pride when our athletes want to still compete at the collegiate level, and it is even nicer when they receive scholarship money.  Matt received a small scholarship to Eastern and looks to continue his rapid improvement in their solid cross country and track programs.  Sagar accepted a full tuition and living expenses scholarship from junior college national power Rend Lake as he looks to improve a great deal and transfer to an upper tier Division I school.  Check out these pictures of proud coaches and athletes:

Above: Matt and Sagar sign their Letters of Intent.

Below: Coach Quick, Sagar Patel, Coach Nalley, Matt Dettloff, and Coach Miller pose together as we celebrate two more scholarship athletes getting ready to exit our program.

Sectional Results - Pirates Send Six Events to IHSA State Meet

I'll recap the state qualifiers first and then get on to other performances from the meet.  Once again, the Palatine Sectional was a special event to be apart of.  Adding York, Maine South, Lake Park, and Fenton the last two years has only increased the level of play in what has usually been the toughest sectional in the state.  This year's edition did not disappoint.  Nine shot putters made it out.  Ten 3200 runners.  A sophomore threw 185' in the discus and a senior lost throwing 183'.  Seven teams made it in the 4 x 800.  Seven or eight milers made it.

3200 meter run - Sagar always runs his best when he gets out on a fast early pace and fights hard to gap speedier runners in the sixth and seventh laps.  He has qualified the last two years (without scoring a point in the meet), but has been consigned to the slow heat.  Our goal this time was to charge all out in the seventh lap and make a bid for top four in the race.  The pace went out really hard - 64 through the 400 and 2:12 through the 800.  The second tier pack of Roberts, Wisser, Spain, and Patel came through at 2:15-2:16 and hit 3:23-3:24 at the 1200.  Havel and Achtien had already run away.  Sagar went through the 1600 at 4:35.6 and proceeded to battle really hard.  As usual though, he could not gap the group enough and suffered in the last 300 meters with a lack of leg speed.  He ended up seventh at 9:29.2 after getting passed by Steve Sulkin of York in the last 150 meters.  Once again, he just missed out on the fast heat and will have to lay down the best mark he can in the slower heat.

800 meter run - Smoody expected one heck of a race from Kuczwara, but it never materialized.  Kucz anchored York's 4 x 800 and looked like he was simply running to qualify.  I know that he dropped his best race of the year last year in the Sectional (1:52.5 or so), but suffered the next week in the open 800.  My guess is that he contained himself and will come full force to win next week.  Smoody ran a basic and controlled race to finish in 1:53.0  Splits were 26.5, 54.4 (27.9), 1:23.4 (29.0), and 1:53.0 (29.6) for a 54.4-58.6 split time.  I was very pleased with his control and poise and cannot wait to see what happens when someone else gives him a race into the last 300 meters.

1600 meter run - Matt Dettloff ran 4:22 in the middle of April, and I just felt that he was primed for a breakout performance.  He qualified to state by running 4:22.3, but he also learned a lot about how to run in traffic.  Kevin Havel and York's Mike Fry gapped the pack just after the 500 meters after taking the first 400 out in a pedestrian 65.6.  That slow pace let a ton of guys into the race, and Dettloff spent much of his energy jockeying for position and spurting in and out of lane one traffic.  I know that he can run faster, but he did do a good job of getting outside in the last 200 meters and finishing fourth overall.  He has made a ton of progress since last season, and I am so proud that he qualified and look for him to run even better next week.

4 x 400 meter relay - I have been telling the boys that we could run 3:20 since back in the fall.  Well call me prophetic now because we ran exactly 3:20.0 to win the Sectional.  We talked a ton about the 4 x 400 when Terrence, Mookie, Telly, Schweikert, and Faber came out for cross country to start a fall track group last season.  To see many (but not nearly all) of their aspirations come to fruition made me proud as a coach.  The race panned out exactly as we planned.  Terrence led off for us and put us right in the race.  He ran 51.4 to get us into third at the exchange.  We put Tim Williams second because we knew he could either catch us up or blow open a big lead.  His 49.8 personal best split brought us to the lead, and Chris Norman battled throughout his leg to hold of Barrington's All-Stater Brian Leseur.  Leseur got by him at 200 meters, but Chris fought hard in the stretch to keep it really tight and finish in a personal best 50.6 split.  It all came down to three stud anchors - Marino Jozic from Maine West, Nick Magiera from Barrington, and Smoody.  Smoody had run down Leseur at the Palatine Relays, but Magiera is a totally different competitor.  Smoody stuck close to the two sprinters through the 200, but Magiera threw in a huge surge to gap him at the 150 mark.  Smoody matched that move and came down the last 100 driving with that 800 meter strength to seal the win 3:20.0 to Barrington's 3:20.3.  What a great race!  I am sure that both of these teams want to move on to bigger and better things next week.

Long Jump and Triple Jump - I wish there was a lot to report here, but Tim Williams only jumped twice.  His first long jump was 23' 6, good for another new school record and for the longest jump in the state,.  He then came out and hit 45' 4" on his first triple jump.  With his qualifying secure, he went on with his business in the 4 x 400.  What a great execution of his events!

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - Pirates Finish 2nd at MSL Meet

Friday night's MSL meet reminded me a lot of why I love track and field in the first place.  It is always an honor to be part of the MSL outdoor meet.  All of us coaches are collegial with each other, and the competition happens at a really high level with optimal sportsmanship.  We ended up losing to Barrington by a score of 129-125.5, but I don't think we could have asked for much more out of our kids.  We lost points in some key events, but had spectacular efforts in others to keep the meet in doubt right up to the last event.  Our conference champions were Tim Williams (200 and long jump) and Mat Smoody (800 and 1600).  Congratulations are in order for those two as well as to the Barrington coaches and athletes that we fought so hard with all night long.

History and Performance Updates - Smoody's time of 4:13.92 puts him at third on the all-time list of 1600 performances in school history and puts him as the top junior over All-Time Great Tom Johnson.  Also, the performance lists have been updated to reflect times run at the Lisle Invite, the F/S MSL Conference meet, and the Varsity MSL Conference meet.

Varsity MSL Results - Smoody and Williams Lead the Way

We have known since January that Barrington would be the team to beat in the MSL this year.  They won last year and returned a Big Senior Five: Magiera, Leseur, Anderson, Ogunbodede, and Asta.  Our chance to beat them lay with scoring in all of the events and getting huge performances from our two stars, Mat Smoody and Tim Williams.  On to the story...

High Jump - Busch and Anderson gave me a couple of heart attacks early.  Anderson missed early at 5' 7" and struggled over 5' 9".  Busch came in at 5' 9" and missed his first two attempts.  He cleared it on the third jump and went on to jump 6' 1" and tie for third.

Long Jump - Mookie opened with a 21' 7" jump, but then had to go run the 100 meter dash.  When he came back, he jumped 22' 9" on his second jump of the prelims to pass Ty Kirk from Rolling Meadows.  That jump won him the event and was big because he never had to jump again.

Pole Vault - It was a tough wind out of the north, and many of the vaulters (excluding the two studs from Rolling Meadows) had rough days.  Dan O'Brien cleared 11' 9" to give us a tie for 6th.

Shot Put - Both Jim Rudd and Robbie Morris threw in the 46 foot range, but that was not good enough to score.  Both Hoffman Estates' Mackowski and Barrington's Ryan Asta were over 57'.

Discus - Robbie Morris threw an eight foot PR to improve from 126 to 134 feet, but his improvement was not good enough to make the final.  Ryan Asta threw 180 feet to defeat Nick Bledsoe from Wheeling, who threw it 176 feet.

Triple Jump - This event was actually resolved after the 4 x 400 meter relay had already been run.  The meet was already out of reach, but Mookie did his best to finish second.  You could tell that he was really tired from five hours of track and field, but he still managed a 44' 11" to take second place.

4 x 800 relay - We pulled our two fastest half guys (Smoody and Dettloff) in the hope that we could score in this event with our varsity cross country guys.  It didn't happen.  Barrington placed fourth to grab some huge team points.

4 x 100 relay - Although the 4 x 200 may have been the place where we lost the meet, the finish in this one was even closer.  Barrington's Andrew Anderson held off Chuck Warren in the last 10 meters to preserve a narrow 43.44 to 43.53 win.  Those nine-hundredths of a second were a huge four point swing for Barrington.

3200 meter run - We needed Sagar to come up big in this race, and he did.  Mike Spain, Bill Wisser, Sagar, Arthur Baptiste, and Dan Quarfoot came through the 1600 at 4:40-4:41, and then the top three broke Baptiste and Quarfoot and that was all she wrote.  The wind really knocked down the times.  Sagar finished 3rd in 9:38 while Quarfoot faded in the last 800 meters to finish 9th.

110 meter high hurdles - George Faber made the final for us, and Nick Brosio barely missed beating a Barrington guy out of his prelim heat.  That swung the points Barrington's way with Temi Ogunbodede winning it and Jason Taylor finishing seventh.  George managed a sixth place finish for three points.

100 meter dash - I circled this event while at the seeding meeting as the most important one of the meet.  Barrington came up huge here.  Andre Anderson and Nick Magiera went 1-2 to score 18 points while Mookie only finished 5th to grab us four points.  It really hurt when our second guy, Joe Schweikert, drew a tough heat and ran really fast but did not make the final.

800 meter run - It was imperative that we punch back in the open half, and Smoody and Dettloff answered the bell with a huge 1-2 finish.  Barrington's sophomore Mangone finished fourth though to get them some key points.  Smoody just ran under control to win it, but Dettloff about gave me a heart attack.  He kept attacking inside and never shook free until 150 meters to go.  He drove all the way through the line to grab a huge second place finish.

4 x 200 relay - We did not expect Barrington to be able to win this, and I am positive that this event decided the meet.  With Leseur and Magiera in the open 400, we expected to throttle them here.  Instead, they pulled off an improbable win, beating us by .18 of a second.  The close finish here represented another four point swing that we lost.

400 meter dash - Barrington blew the meet wide open when Leseur and Magiera delivered a 1-2 punch and 18 points.  Terrence Thigpen and Gerald Hutton did go fourth and sixth here to score eight points and keep it close, but we were really on the ropes at this point.

300 meter intermediate hurdles - Things started to turn back in our direction in this event.  George Faber came up huge for us, placing first in the third heat and ending up in fourth place.  When coupled with Fremd's Ty Perna beating Barrington's Ogunbodede, this gave them an 8-5 advantage in the event rather than a blowout.

1600 meter run - And then came the mile.  Smoody and Dettloff had just run the 800 meters, and I expected them to fight hard, but be a bit drained.  Smoody's task was tough - he had to beat Kevin Havel for the first time in his life to get us the team points.  Dettloff had to double back against a bunch of low-4:20 milers to score use whatever he could.  We ended up first and fourth in a great display of team pride.  Smoody shadowed Havel the entire race, knowing that Havel would have to try to break him in the middle of the race and not leave it to the kick.  Smoo caught a sweet ride on a windy night and sprinted away in the last 150 to run 4:13.92, the third fastest time in school history.  Dettloff meanwhile just kept hanging around and gunned down a bunch of tired guys in the last 400 meters to place fourth.  What a lift for our team.

200 meter dash - Barrington had qualified two guys into the final earlier in the day while we had Mookie and our sophomore, Chris Norman.  Chris' hamstring has been hurting him for the last 10 days so this race was his only job of the day.  Mookie ran a phenomenal race, finishing in 22.57 to win easily.  Chris fought all the way to the line to snag fourth in 23.16.  Unfortunately, the BHS guys were fifth and sixth to grab seven key team points.

4 x 400 meter relay - The meet came down to the 4 x 400, but it did not end up being much of a race.  They had their best lineup left while we used Mookie and Chris to get points in the 200.  Lesuer blew it open in the third leg despite Dan Sutton's nice 51.7 leg, and Magiera had a massive lead on Smoody.  In the end, our inability to win one of the three sprint relays cost us the meet.   

F/S MSL Results - Youngsters Tie for First with Great Team Effort

On Thursday, our F/S conference team tied with Barrington with 80 points for the conference title.  It was an omen of things to come on Friday night:  My highlights:

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: