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

October 26, 2008 - Palatine Programs Take Two Regional Titles

Both the boys and girls teams won IHSA Regional titles on Saturday, continuing a trend of sharing hardware that began with last week's twin MSL Conference titles.  Hopefully we can keep that trend rolling in next week's IHSA Sectional at Busse Woods.  Sarah McIntosh won the girls individual title as the ladies narrowly defeated Hoffman Estates by a score of 52-56.  Courtney Brown also ran onto the All-Regional team with a 5th place finish.

On the boys side, Lake Zurich and Conant both pushed us to the max through the two mile, but our boys stayed poised and rallied in the last mile to pull off a win that looks bigger than it actually was.  We scored 57 points to 72 for Lake Zurich and 73 for Conant.  The guys were paced by All-Regional runs from Chano Bernardo (3rd) and Alec Bollman (5th).

To tell the truth, neither the boys nor the girls ran very well, but there will come a time soon for better racing.  The important thing is that we took some solid shots from some good teams and still won.  The Regional round is all about staying low-key, fine tuning aspects of the race plan, and advancing to fight on the next week.  We got all of that done today.

Pictures Updates - I added three galleries of pictures shot courtesy of Steve and Cindy Johnson and Jacob Starcevich.  Check out the galleries for the IHSA Regional, the MSL Conference, and the St. Charles Best Invite.

History Updates - I did a ton of work on the history pages, adding some recent photos of new All-Time Greats to the All-Conference and All-State pages.  Also, Coach Miller suggested earlier this year that I put up some pages that had full-team pictures for our MSL Conference, IHSA Regional, and IHSA Sectional winning teams.  I added those three pages along with names and grades for all of the guys on those All-Time Great teams.  If you have team pictures for any that I am missing, please send them to me at cquick@d211.org.

IHSA Regional - Laskowske and Blyth Lead Us to Victory

Despite all of the success we have had over the last number of years, the IHSA Regional has not been our friend.  Two years ago we lost to Hersey in a great race for them and a disaster for us, and we rarely seem to bring a ton of fire to these races.  We have won quite a few, but it is usually a slugfest with someone and today was no different.  We knew that Lake Zurich would be out to assert themselves after winning the NSC Conference title last week and Conant (despite the absence of Jeffrey Thode) is still senior-dominated and hungry.  We pulled it out, but it was not pretty.  Lucky for us, winning ugly = still winning.

Chano had a tall order today with the addition of Lake Zurich's Gerardo Perez to his normal rivalry with Pat Lesiewicz.  Our plan was for Chano to shadow these two for the first half of the race and to get Alec in on the action through at least the first mile.  That didn't happen as Alec tried to get in early, but was dropped just after the 800 meter mark.  Tommy and Juan hooked up early per usual habit, and our 5-6-7 guys (Bethke, Kierys, and Blyth) were all together and looking in control.

Things started to go awry just past the mile point as I saw Chano getting dropped slightly and Alec back into fifth place behind the aforementioned three as well as Fremd's Aaron Ferst.  To make matters worse, Cisco Soto (one that got away!) and Andrew Morrison from Lake Zurich were hooked up and cruising in here ahead of Tommy.  Lasko made some nice moves to reduce the damage, but Juan had dropped hard off of Tommy's pace and was really struggling and fading back toward our 5-6-7.  Juan has been sick all week and looked it, but he gave it a game effort out there today.  I was proud of him for not dwelling on it and giving us his best on this day.

As Juan faded back, I saw Geimer, LZ's #4 guy in here right on his tail and our back end had not made any kind of substantive charge.  Blyth started driving along with Bethke just past the 1 1/2 mile mark, but Kierys had been dropped and did not look sharp.  Lake Zurich's 5th guy was in here not far off of our #5, and I also started to notice that Conant's guys were hooked up and really looking good.  They would end up going 13-14-15 behind a 6th place finish from Tyler Fuchs.  Had Thode been able to run, we probably would not have won.  Too bad - maybe we would have stepped up our game a bit.

Heading to the two mile, I counted the points and had us up two.  Gerardo Perez heard me yelling to my guys that we were down to them and gave a little fist pump right in front of me, exclaiming "we've got this."  That got me going a bit, and it was fun to be in a tight battle at that point.  Over the last mile though, the LZ boys faded as our guys stayed poised and kept their composure.  Chano and Alec held spots 3 and 5 while Tommy closed down the gap on their 2-3.  After three guys it was tied, but a late kick from Kierys and a strong third mile from Blyth saw us head into the chute in 19-20-21 with six guys ahead of their #4 and seven in front of their #5.  We ended up with a 15 point win that was more work than it looked like.  Congrats to LZ and Conant on a solid race.

This Regional title was our sixth in the last seven years and continues a string of success that Miller and I have had together as coaches.  As we wind down our time coaching together, these wins get sweeter and sweeter for me.  What a joy to get to do this with you Coach!  Congrats on another big Palatine win.

October 19, 2008 - Boys and Girls Win MSL Titles

A couple of years ago (2004 I think) the boys and girls teams pulled off a clean sweep of the MSL conference meet, winning all six team and individual titles.  We did not quite succeed at that level on Saturday, but our kids were darn close.  We won five team titles and three individual titles, and it was a lot of fun to think back on how hard all of the boys and girls worked at Early Bird this summer to lay the groundwork for this success.  Congrats everyone!

The two most important races were the boys and girls varsity.  Sarah McIntosh lead the way by winning her first conference title.  Sarah, Courtney Brown, Ruth Allen, Becca Sund, and Tory Wright each earned All-Conference honors and led the team to its first title since 2005.  On the boys side, we won our sixth consecutive MSL title behind five finishers in the top 15.  Chano Bernardo (2nd), Alec Bollman (5th), Juan Perez (12th), Tom Laskowske (13th), and Luke Kierys (15th) earned All-Conference honors in leading us to a 47-80 win over a young and improving Prospect team.  It was the second All-Conference honor for both Chano and Alec.

We dominated both the F/S and JV races despite a tough challenge from Prospect in the JV.  Nine of our F/S runners were All-Conference as we defeated Prospect by a score of 37-80.  Our honorees included: Erik Bethke (3rd), Ryan McGough (4th), Tim Johnson (5th), A.J. Laskowske (8th), Erich Kuerschner (17th), Kendall Cox (20th), Reuben Frey (21st), Tim Meincke (22nd), and Anthony Gregorio (23rd).  My hands hurt just typing all of that! 

In the JV we won a close race over Prospect by a score of 24-36.  Eric Blyth won the race and ran his way onto the varsity top 7.  Behind him, Top 25 finishers included Jeff Larson (3rd), Justin Smith (4th), Ryan Wojdyla (6th), Vlad Novikov (11th), Matt Wiggen (13th), Eric Rodriguez (15th), Brian Sund (16th), Justin Olson (19th), Colin Morlock (21st), and Drew Shaler (22nd).  We took half of the top 22 spots, and I could not be prouder of these guys who work so hard and are rarely recognized.

St. Charles Best Invite - Boys Win on All Four Levels

After competing all season in high-powered invites, it is nice to go out to St. Charles and be part of something that is low-key.  There are only eight teams and no girls races.  Our goal this year was to use our depth to try and win on all four levels.  We did just that.  Outside of a flat and lackluster varsity race, the team looks prepared, and you can tell that the taper is working for the guys who are finishing their seasons at the MSL meet.  I am short on time so I'll just give the highlights:

October 3, 2008 - Boys Win 7th Straight MSL West Title

We had no weekend meet, but the boys did have to run hard on Thursday night to defeat Conant and clinch our 7th consecutive MSL West title.  The streak lives on for another year at 43 consecutive MSL races!  Conant gave us a great run, but the boys stayed poised and pulled it out in the last 800 meters to win by a score of 24-32.  We also defeated Barrington 15-49.  Our frosh-soph won both duals to finish their season undefeated.

Fremd Dual - Emerging Fremd Team Provides Solid Challenge

I have known since last track season that Fremd was much improved.  With the Palatine Invite on the horizon, I did not want to have our guys work too hard in this one, but I also knew that Fremd would be fired up to give us their best shot.  We certainly got it.  Our guys handled them in the end, but it was not the cruising victory we wanted.  Chano wore Aaron Ferst down after the 1 1/2 mile mark, and our pack of Bollman, Perez, and Laskowske fought with Fremd's nice-looking sophomore Andy Mack before we let him go and finished in fourth, fifth, and sixth.  Bollman wanted to go get him and tried to run through three coach stop signs, but we told him to save it for Saturday's Palatine Invite.  Bethke once again dropped off the group and had to work hard to finish in 8th place.  The final score was 24-33.

September 29, 2008 - Varsity Places 3rd at Palatine Invite

We had a great day at the Palatine Invite on Saturday, showcasing the depth of our program against many of the other best programs in the state.  The boys varsity placed third behind Elmhurst York and Lyons Township, the sophomores and junior varsity placed second behind York, and the freshmen team won the whole thing!  Our varsity girls also won behind a near course record winning effort from Sarah McIntosh.  Check out all the results in the Results section.

September 20, 2008 - Boys Run Great at Peoria Notre Dame

Our program got to flex its muscle in the prestigious Peoria Notre Dame Invite, finishing top three on all levels.  Our varsity originally thought that we won on the sixth man tiebreaker over Sandburg, but a late change in the score (a debatable video review) saw us lose by a point.  Our junior varsity dominated the field, scoring 21 points even though the PND people refuse to score it or give a team award.  Lastly, our frosh-soph guys placed third overall.  What a great day!

Hoffman Estates Dual - Boys and Girls Win on All Levels

Hoffman Estates always has a couple of really good guys, and I know they train really hard in the summer so I always expect a tough team race as well.  A lot of their best guys from last year graduated so I did not know exactly what to expect.  We knew and respected Perez and Gonzalez and ended up getting a great battle from their third man Hamilton, but our depth allowed us to win in the end 19-41.

September 14, 2008 - Boys and Girls Win at Schaumburg

The boys and girls each had great performances on both levels in our Thursday dual with Schaumburg at Hoover Elementary School.  The ladies put seven in the top nine as Sarah McIntosh ran to a dominating victory.  They also went 1-5 in the open race.  Our F/S followed suit by sweeping the top six spots and eight of the top ten, winning 15-48.  The varsity race was even better.  Schaumburg’s Pat Lesiewicz won the race in a course record time of 15:42, but we took the next ten spots to win handily by a score of 20-43.  Lesiewicz’s run was so impressive and a privilege to watch.  Twenty years of great Schaumburg guys have run there, but he broke the record by seven seconds and looks as if he is moving into state title contention individually. 

September 7, 2008 - Boys Take Three Trophies at Hinsdale

The boys and girls teams opened their invite season on Saturday at the Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invite.  Both teams competed well even though we did not win any of the five levels in which we competed.  The boys placed third in the sophomore race, second in the varsity race, and second in the freshman race.  Neuqua Valley won all three levels and looked great.  The girls placed second in both the varsity and the open races behind Hinsdale Central.  I put links to official results of all races on our Results page.

September 3, 2008 - Pirate Boys and Girls Win Openers

We finally got to kick off our season last night in a dual meet with Prospect.  The heat was brutal with the temperature in the low 90s at race time with the heat index in the mid-90s.  Despite the heat, the boys ran impressively, winning 19-41 on the varsity level and 20-39 on the F/S level.  Prospect is a talented and tough team who will be much better down the road when we meet again.  A couple of their key guys were out last night so I am sure they will be ready when the big meets come around at the end of the season.  Our girls also ran well.  I don't know the final varsity score, but we went 1-3-4-5-6 for 19 points.