Palatine Boys CC Home Page

Boys Track Schedule (home meets bold)
2-15	St. Charles Dual
2-23	Bolingbrook Dual
3-1	York Invite
3-7	Proviso Quad
3-8	F/S MSL Conference
3-15	Varsity MSL Invite
3-18	Glenbrook South Triangular
3-29	Top Times Invite
4-1	Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg Triangular
4-8	Hersey, Rolling Meadows Triangular
4-10	Barrington Freshman Invite
4-12	Five Team Invite @ TBD
4-15	Fremd, Wheeling Triangular
4-16	Libertyville F/S Relays
4-18	Wheaton South ABC Meet
4-21	MSL West Division Championship
4-26	75th Annual Palatine Relays
4-29	Hersey F/S Invite
5-2	Prospect, Viator, and Schaumburg JV Meet
5-3	Lisle Invite
5-9	Varsity and F/S MSL Meet @ Buffalo Grove
5-13	Naperville Central F/S ABC Meet
5-16	IHSA Sectional
5-23 5-24	IHSA State @ Eastern Illinois University

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

Sunday, May 18, 2008 - Palatine Wins MSL and Sectional

For some reason track is busier than cross country so I apologize for the lack of updates. There is so much to report on, and I finally have some time to do it now that AP tests are over and the IHSA State meet is here. At least I have great news for everyone - we have been coming together as a track team and performing great. We won the MSL for the first time officially since 1972 (even though I know we won in 1984 but had to forfeit). To top it off, we won the IHSA Sectional for the first time in school history, scoring 76 points and qualifying athletes in 10 events. Hopefully the best is yet to come as we hold a number of high seeds for the state meet this coming weekend.

History and Performance List Updates - Check out the updated History Section and the Performance Lists, which are updated through the end of the IHSA Sectional meet and the final team time trials. Smoody lowered his own school record in the 800 to 1:51.4 and moved into the #1 spot for the Senior 800 meters. Chano Bernardo moved up to 16th on the 3200 career list and #6 on the Sophomore 3200 meter list. The 4 x 800 time of 7:58.9 also was the 10th best relay time in school history.

Outside of the distance times, we also put a ton of all-time marks on our lists for this season. I know that our 1:29.2 in the 4 x 200 moved the quartet of Schwiekert, Norman, Sutton, and Williams to #2 on the all-time list. The 3:20.1 time in the 4 x 400 moved Norman, Smoody, Wiggen, and Williams to #3 on the all-time list for that event.

IHSA Sectional - Pirates Take Home 1st IHSA Sectional Title

We hadn't had a meet where I felt that we hit everything out of the park since indoors at York. Even at the MSL meet, we had an up and down set of performances. On Friday night, we ran well to advance ten separate events, and I really think that there is a ton of room for improvement in certain spots. I'll go event by event...

Pole Vault - I am not sure what our guys vaulted in here, but this was one of the prime events of the meet. Mick Viken of Rolling Meadows returned from a stress fracture to vault 16' 4", the top vault heading into the state meet. All six scorers vaulted over 14' 6" and qualified.

Discus - This event became one of the prime attractions because new state-record holder Dan Block was throwing. Block (from Lake Park) had thrown 201" earlier in the season to supplant Gary Kostrubala as the IHSA record holder. We made sure to paint our sector out to 200' and it was a lot of fun to see everyone flock to the discus area. In warmups he bounced one at about the 196' mark that went another 30 feet into our baseball diamond's first base line fence. His best legal throw was 196' 9", and he led a parade of throwers to the state meet, including our senior Andre Higgs. Andre threw 151" to get into the finals and then snatched third place and a state berth with a 156' 5" - a five foot career PR. Five throwers qualified in all.

Shot Put - I know that Coach Bobbit said that our guys had a weak meet, but six throwers qualified in all. Dan Block led the way once again with a state-leading toss of 61' 1".

Long Jump - This event was a bit muted because the priority of most of the best jumpers was to fly past the 22' 3" standard and then scratch the rest of their jumps. I know that happened with the champion, Sam Ojuri (Barrington), who jumped 23' 4 1/4" to win and then did not jump in finals. Mookie only took two jumps since his 22' 11 1/2" was well over the standard. Rolling Meadows' Ty Kirk jumped 22' 10" and three other boys made it over the standard for a total of six.

Triple Jump - I don't know many jumps Mookie took in this one, but his 46' 10" was more than enough to get the state mark. He took second to Ty Kirk of Meadows who jumped 47' 1 1/2" to take the title. Three other jumpers also surpassed the standard.

High Jump - Our focus here was getting our senior Nick Busch qualified, and he did that by skying over 6' 4" on his first attempt. Buffalo Grove's Matt Newman cleared 6' 7" to qualify and put himself in position to equal or better his third place finish from last year's state meet.

4 x 800 meter relay - When we decided to pull Smoody from the 1600 and focus on the 4 x 400 relay, it became an obvious choice to try and qualify this relay to the state meet. The goal was that our first three legs would run well enough that Mat wouldn't have to do all of the work. We probably will not run Mat at state, but our 7:58.9 was one of the best times in school history and earned our younger guys a good chance to run in the state meet. Bollman lead off in 1:59.9 and got it to Wiggen in good shape. Wigs ran 2:01.4, tying up a bit, but keeping us on state pace at 4:01.3. We needed Kierys to drop time from his 2:04.0 PR, and he did just that to record a career best 2:02.9 and get it to Smoody at 6:04.2. Mat only needed to run 1:58.8 to qualify us, but he went ahead and caught one team to take us to 5th place overall. He ran 1:54.6.

4 x 100 meter relay - This event was a bit of a long shot for us, but the first three legs had been running well and were handing off to sophomore anchor Steve Schalla, who has run so well the last half of the season. Sutton really got us into position with a great third leg, but we just didn't have enough to catch Barrington and Buffalo Grove, who both ran 43.1. We ran 43.4 and grabbed third overall for some key team points.

3200 meter run - A ton of deliberation went into the lineup choices for this race. Alex Mourousias earned the spot with a career best time at the Lisle meet, but he turned up with the flu on the Monday of the Sectional. We thought of running O'Brien, but decided to stick with Alex and Chano Bernardo as our two entries. The goal was to run relaxed and fast and stay within the qualifying group that inevitably materializes in this race. Hersey's Kevin Havel broke away in the first half and dominated en route to a 9:09.2 clocking. The chase pack then became Matt Perez (Hoffman Estates), Nathan Rutz and Pat Lesiewicz (Schaumburg), Clay Locke (Buffalo Grove), and Chano and Ammo. They hit the 1600 in 4:44-4:45, but the pace started to lag. I sent Chano to the front of that group to keep the pace moving. That two lap burst worked as the group narrowed down to Perez, Bernardo, and Lesiewicz. They all kicked home and made it. Chano recorded a lifetime best of 9:31.7, but will have to settle for a slow heat placement at state. The cutoff was right at 9:31. Mourousias stuck with the pack as long as he could, but had to settle for a valiant 9:42 effort.

100 and 110 hurdles - No finalists.

800 meter run - Mat does not usually run both the 4 x 800 and the 800 in the same meet so we decided to just cruise and qualify. As he has done all year, Barrington's Ryan Mangone ran aggressively in the first 400 meters. Mat cruised in rhythm through a 56 second first 400 and worked his way to Mangone's shoulder by 650 meters. There was a bit of a spirited fight until about 50 meters to go and then Mat pulled away to win in 1:54.6. That puts him 5th in the state heading into the prelims. In heat one, sophomore Mike Grobner ran an all-time best of 2:07.2 to continue his really positive end-of-season list of performances.

4 x 200 meter relay - We had a couple of sophomores come through in this relay at the MSL to get us this seed time, and we loaded it with Tim Williams and Chris Norman with hopes of making the state final the next week. Our boys ran all alone and ran well to record a 1:29.2 and vault themselves to a #2 clocking in school history. We were all alone from leg two onward so we hope some stronger competition can drive us to an even greater effort next week.

400 meter dash - I know that Gerald Hutton ran a career best of 51.8 in one of the slower heats, but I missed Diego Cortez's race and am unsure of what he ran. Elk Grove's Jason Zerfahs ran 49.6 to win the race.

300 meter hurdles - Our goal here was to get George Faber qualified to the state meet, and he ran a solid race to get that done. George placed third overall behind Prospect's Pat Ziegenfuss and Conant's Kyle Reid in a time of 39.5.

1600 meter run - We were lucky to get Alec Bollman into the fast heat of this race, but Kevin O'Brien had to settle for being the top seed in the middle heat. The best he could do was go out and win that heat in a career best of 4:31.1. An opening first lap of 61 seconds probably cost him in the end, but I was proud that he was on pace at 3:19 at the 1200 to qualify. Alec ran a 4:30 career best in this race, but I wanted a more aggressive race in the middle than he gave. He still did well to PR after a nice leadoff leg in the 4 x 800, but Alec still has a lot of race learning to do before he becomes a top-flight miler.

4 x 400 meter relay - We put all of our eggs in one basket for this race by scratching Smoody out of the 1600 and Williams and Norman out of a soft 200 field. It was a tough call as to what combination of events could lead to more state points, but we decided to run here because it meant less efforts for Mookie in the sprints and because Smoody had not doubled well up to this point. The decision looks like a good one after watching our 3:20.1 effort. Norman came through with a great leadoff leg that got us in the lead at the first exchange. Smoody then ripped a 48.4 leg to blow the race wide open and get it to Wiggen with a massive lead. Wigs ran 51.4 or so to keep us on the lead and Mookie anchored it home in 49.6. I hope we can go faster next week when the competition gets a bit tougher. Right now we are seeded 1st in the third heat and will be able to advance if we win our heat.

MSL Conference - Varsity Grabs 1st Title Since 1972

I should probably go event by event for this one, but I think I'll just comment on the events where we scored points. Thankfully, we scored in 15 of the 18 events and were able to win the meet by 30 points despite not having our best efforts across the board. Highlights:

	Mat Smoody and I saw that the conference record in the 800 meters was 1:51.6, set by Steve Schellenberger of Arlington High School in 1975. Mat had really not let it go in an 800 since he recorded a 1:53 and change at the Wheaton meet so we decided to go for the record. A secondary consideration was the Nike Outdoor National meet. We knew that he would have to run 1:50-1:51 to be seeded into the fast heat there. The result was stunning. Mat took the race out hard from the gun and never looked back, spltting 25.6, 52.0 (26.4), 1:21.0 (29.0) and 1:51.4 (30.4) to break the record and win his 5th career MSL title and the third 800 meter title of his career. Even better, we got a call from the NON meet directors who guaranteed him a spot in the fast heat of the national meet. Mission accomplished! To put the icing on the cake, sophomore Alec Bollman placed 5th in 2:00.3 to give us 14 points in the event.
	Tim Williams had a busy day which led to 29 points in individual events. He won the 100 and 200 despite a lingering back injury and placed second in the triple jump with a 46' 3" mark. His only problem of the day was an eighth place finish in the long jump. He fouled five times and showed some of the ill effects of a back injury that kept him out of practice all week long.
	Nick Busch stepped up big in the high jump to grab 8 points for second place. He cleared 6' 4". In other field event action, we placed in both the shot put and discus. Andre Higgs threw a career best of 151' to place 5th while Chad Bobbit and Jim Rudd tied for 8th in the shot put. Coach Bobbit guaranteed Nalley that we would score points in these events for the first time in four years, and we came away with 5 points.
	Superstar Kevin Havel opted out of this event to run the 4 x 800 and 1600 so that left the scoring opportunities wide open. His teammate Billy Wisser won the event in 9:30 and our two guys, Chano Bernardo and Kevin O'Brien, were able to swoop in and grab the 3rd and 4th spots and a solid 11 points overall. They ran 9:42 and 9:43. The 3200 was a huge pick-up for the team and got the momentum going in our direction.
	The first two relays in the meet - the 4 x 800 and the 4 x 100 - were races where we counted on our depth guys to help us score points. The 4 x 800 placed fifth in 8:24 behind the efforts of Matt Wiggen (2:01.6), Luke Kierys (2:04.0), Lewis Conley (2:06.5) and Alec Bollman (2:12.3). I backed Alec off when it became clear we would end up in 5th place at best. That was a testament to the nice job done by the other three. Their great efforts enabled us to save Alec for the open 800 where he scored 4 more points. In the 4 x 100, we placed third overall on the back of nice handoffs and legs from Joe Schweikert, Chris Norman, Dan Sutton, and sophomore Steve Schalla. Sutton ran a great curve and put Steve right in the middle of the fight.
	In the 1600 Mat Smoody gave a game effort, but was bested by two guys on longer rest. Despite that, I am not sure he would have beaten Conant's Jeffrey Thode , who clocked a 4:10.8 to break Lee Labadie's conference record of 4:12.2 from 1966. Thode followed Hersey's Kevin Havel until 200 meters to go and then kicked hard to the line. Smoody managed to hold off a charging Pat Lesiewicz from Schaumburg, but did not look good, fading off the 2:05 opening pace to run 4:20. Still, he placed third and got us the points. Alex Mourousias was in the slow heat, but managed to win it in a career best of 4:33.
	The meet was still halfway close going into the 200, but we put it away big time with a 1-2 finish from Chris Norman and Tim Williams. Neither of the times were season bests, but the celebration was on after these two guys cinched the meet for us. We placed 5th in the 4 x 400 behind game opening and closing legs from Wiggen and Smoody, but the meet was already in the bag.

All in all, it was a huge privilege to be part of a conference title team in track. Ever since I started coaching track here, I have wanted to be part of a team that won this meet so it was extremely gratifying to win it and help break a thirty plus year drought. Way to go boys!

Carley Nalley Lisle Invitational - Distance Guys Run Several PRs

Sandwiched in between the Palatine Relays and the MSL Conference, we took a really low key approach in this one. In the end, we scratched quite a few events due to rainy weather and some small injuries. We still placed third overall despite scratching many of our big scorers. Highlights included:

	Alex Mourousias ran one of the finest races I have ever had from one of my distance athletes. He came in with a 9:57 career best, but managed to lower that to 9:39 despite rainy and windy conditions. His splits were 4:50-4:48, and he just ran a confident and controlled race. For a guy who was a 4th man at CC state and only 25th in our conference, this was quite an achievement. Also in this race, Mat Smoody dropped his career PR down to 9:27 after being on 9:15 pace for the first six laps. That time at least moves him to top 10-12 on the 3200 career list. I expected a little bit faster, but that effort wasn't bad for a guy who has only run the 3200 six times in all of high school.
	OB and Bollman took another shot at getting into the Sectional fast heat and ran well to place 2nd and 3rd, but the race was slow and their 4:33 (Alec) and 4:34 (OB) times for 2nd and 3rd did little to improve that status.
	In the 800 junior Matt Wiggen finally had his breakthrough race, recording a 2:01.2 to place 4th overall. I promised Wigs all year that he could run near 2:00 in his first year for this event, and he finally delivered. Junior Luke Kierys also ran well to lower his PR to 2:05.3.

Other than these races, there really isn't a whole lot to report. Tim Williams' back was really hurting so we scratched all of his races, including the 4 x 200 and 4 x 400. To tell the truth, we were gun-shy in this meet with the MSL coming up the next weekend. The 50 degree weather, wind, and constant drizzle didn't make it very profitable to run anyway. Still, we placed third overall and had a solid meet.

Sunday, April 27, 2008 - Pirates Roll to MSL West, Relays Titles

We had one heck of a week. On Monday we won our second consecutive MSL West title, and the boys followed that up with a resounding victory in the 76th Palatine Relays. We took both meets seriously and were able to come up with resounding wins, including a 77 point victory over Belleville East at the Relays - 142-65. I have a ton of new info to report.

Picture Updates - Courtesy of Sam Kwak, we now have three new photo galleries. Check out his pictures from the Wheaton South ABC Invite, the MSL West Division meet, and the Palatine Relays.

Performance List and Relays Updates - I will get to the updates on the Palatine Relays history later on this week. For now, I have updated all of the season-long distance performance lists.

76th Annual Palatine Relays - Tim Williams Wins McElroy Award

We had a phenomenal team effort in this meet, scoring in the top five in every single event. This meet was so key in building momentum toward the MSL meet, the IHSA Sectional, and the IHSA State meet. Everyone is working together now, and it was a really beautiful sight to behold on Saturday. After Coach Lund, Coach Nalley, and Coach Teach talked to the team on Friday night, I was hoping that everyone would stand up and defend our tradition in this meet. You guys responded with 142 points - the greatest output by our team in the 76 years of the meet. Congrats!

Above: Nick Busch skies over 6' 2" to lead our high jump relay.

Let's start off by recapping Tim Williams' day. He long-jumped 23' 4" to lead us to 2nd or 3rd in the long jump relay. Then, he ran 10.8 in the 100 meter dash to win that going away. He closed out his day of running by recording a 21.8 in the 200 meter dash. The best, however, came in the triple jump. We paired Mookie with Paul McElwain and Manny Del Rio, who had both been improving and gave us 38 foot efforts. Still, we were down by eight inches going into Mookie's last jump. Coach Nalley asked him to scratch and save his energy because we didn't even need the points by that point in the meet. Mookie insisted on jumping and ripped off a 46' 7" career best to take us into first place. What a big time performer he can be when he is at his best!

Above: Tim Williams en route to his fourth title of the day in the 200 meter dash.

Our two F/S relays made huge contributions early in the meet to get us going. Dan Schweikert ran 54.2 to lead off the 1600 medley. Filian and Marrison than ran nice 200 meter legs to get it to Bollman in the lead. Alec ran 2:05.6 to cinch the victory. In the 800 medley, Fillian and Marrison combined with Steve Schalla to get us into the final exchange in third place. Diego Cortez, who has been on fire lately and was cited by Coach Lund on Friday night for his big heart, brought us all the way back to win. His 53 second split was a career best.

In the distance races, we ran for points rather than time. The wind was brutal all day long, gusting from 25-35 mph. Smoody just played it safe in the 800, producing a great 100 meter kick to run away and win in 1:56.3. Kevin O'Brien went out hard on 4:50 pace, but could not hang with Prairie Ridge's Billy TenBusch or Fremd's Aaron Ferst in the second mile. He ran 9:54 to place third.

Above: Mat Smoody receives his 1st place medal in the 800 meter dash, becoming the only three-time winner in that event.

	In the 1600, Bobby Nicholls (CO) and Griff Graves (VA) came over after running the 3200 at the Prospect Knights Invite. They ran 9:07 and 9:09 respectively and then came to our meet to complete the double. They all agreed to trade leads in hopes of running a fast time. Smoody took lap one and went out way too hard in 27.5 and 60.9 for the 200 and 400. Everyone suffered on lap two as it came through in 2:08-2:09. Graves surged to the front at that point and just stole the race right out from underneath everyone. He finished in 4:17 for the win. Behind him, Smoody looked tired after that too quick beginning and had to rally late to catch both Nicholls and Jeffrey Thode from Conant. Thode ran a great race, but Smoody nipped him with a big comeback in the last 100 meters. Mat's 4:20.6 effort shows that he needs to control his speed a little better: 60.9-2:08.9 (68)-3:19.0 (70.1)-4:20.6 (61.6) is no way to run a good 1600 meter time.
	Our shot and discus boys had a nice day scoring-wise, but were all a bit disappointed with their throws. The big highlight was finishing second in the discus behind the efforts of Martynas Groza, Tyler Jones, and Andre Higgs. The guys also grabbed a fifth in the shot put. Coach Bobbit was so excited after we got those discus points that he almost broke my hand giving me a low five.
	We placed fourth in the 440 high hurdle shuttle behind another sweet 14.9 from George Faber and three solid legs from Dan LaRocca, Brad Dorman, and Eric DeBellis.

Above: Brad Dorman en route to a fourth place finish in the 440 high hurdle shuttle.

	In the DMR, we ran gamely, but not quickly to place second overall in 11:03.8. Alex Mourousias led off in 3:24 to get us into secondd place, and we stayed there throughout most of the race. Gerald Hutton split 53.2 in the 400 leg. Kierys then ran a solid 2:06.5 on the windy day and got it to Chano with a nice advantage over third place Wheeling. Chano went out too hard (63.0) and suffered a bit in the wind as he ran 4:40.
	The 4 x 800 relay team of Matt Wiggen (2:08.6), Justin Olson (2:12.5), Chano Bernardo (2:08.4), and Alec Bollman (2:11.4) ran 8:40.8, but stole six third place points. The effort was competitive, but slow overall. We were lucky the competition was not as strong as usual.
	Chris Norman stepped up in the 400 meter dash to tie for third place. We debated whether Chris was ready after a lackluster run in the MSL West 400 on Monday, but he responded beautifully to turn in a 51.7 PR.
	Last but not least, the 4 x 400 crew of Matt Wiggen (52.8), George Faber (52.7), Gerald Hutton (52.4), and Mat Smoody (49.6) stepped up to defend our event title from last year. Smoody got it in second just off the heals of the Huntley runner, passed him on the backstretch, and gamely held on in the final 100 meters to win it in 3:27.4.
	Last, but certainly not least, we had some nice performances in the Alumni Mile. Nigliaccio won the award for fastest weight gain since graduation with Larson and Brian Brodeur in contention as well. Jimmy Mac and Brian McLain still retain some fitness as both were able to break 5:00 for the 1600 and split the two coaches. Alumni mile rookie Matt Sheehan won the event in 4:41 while old man Quick managed to enjoy another day in the sun by running 4:57. Thanks have to go out to Joe Parks for urging me on and to Chano for telling me (with Spanish accent) "You're killing me!" I guess I have to be able to take it if I dish it out.