MSL Jim Nagel Invite - Bollman's Twin 800s Highlight Solid Night
As a full team we have a lot of work to do. We placed 9th out of
11 teams with only 32 1/3 points and will need to be much more
competitive and together as a team. I hope that our weak showing
as a group will serve as a wake-up call. With so many guys hurt
and others coming back from other sports we still have a lot of room to
improve.
4 x 800 meter relay - I wasn't sure if we would send a
relay team to the IPTT meet even if we qualified, but I wanted us to run
under the 8:17.0 standard anyway. I put our fastest four in here
as well, and I was also hoping to pull off the win. Neither
Prospect nor Hersey ran their best four, but we ran a solid race to take
the win in 8:12. Ryan McGough led off in a ton of traffic as they
ran one heat of 11 teams on the four lane Lewis track. He split
2:05, but spent most of his time getting jostled and thrown around.
No one ran particularly well for any team on leadoff, and we quickly got
in the thick of things with a nice PR leg from Chano Bernardo. His
2:04.2 split brought us to the lead, and sophomore Tim Meincke had the
responsibility of running a huge PR and keeping the lead. Hersey
and Prospect zoomed past us, but Tim stayed composed and dropped 3.5
seconds from his PR to finish in 2:07.3. Here is where the real
action started. Alec hit the 200 in 27.7 but was under control and
he came through the 400 in 57.3. From there he stayed in rhythm,
reeling in Hersey's anchor leg with 80 meters to go. His scorching
1:56.2 split was a career best and showed that his speed is really
starting to come around.
3200 meter run - We had a great opportunity to improve times and
compete in this one, but it just didn't happen. Neither Anthony
Gregorio nor Ryan Wojdyla had a good race, and both guys ended up out of
the places and nowhere near their season bests. Back to the drawing
board.
800 meter run - Zach Gates had been sick much of the week,
but he came back after one day of practice and set a new PR of 2:08.3 in
the slower of the two sections. He placed second in the race.
In the faster section Alec ran one of his better races ever to finish
second in 1:59.4. He was the only guy in the field doubling back
from the 3200 relay, and I was incredibly impressed with his poise and
competitiveness on 25 minutes of rest. He couldn't quite hang with
a fresh Angelos Karkalis, but Alec did well to fend off a couple of late
charges from Prospect's Albert Ciolek.
1600 meter run - Our
results in this one were mixed. I had Chano come back after his
sweet 4 x 800 meter leg, but I could tell right from the start that he
was not right. He grimaced his way through a 32 second opening
lap, and I thought about yanking him. He finished in 4:38 with a
bit of an injured ankle. I feared the worst, but it seems like he
just had some tendon inflammation after his first race and didn't tell
me about it. The better story here was Tim Johnson's continued
improvement. Again, he put himself in the race through 1200 meters
with Schaumburg's Pat Lesiewicz, Meadows' Photis Karkalis, and
Prospect's Ken Halloran. He hung gamely off the back of this top
crew until 400 meters to go before hanging on and running 4:31.8.
Schaumburg's Mike Perry caught him right at the line, but I'll take a
5th place PR finish from a sophomore who only lost to seniors.
Glenbrook South Triangular - Freshmen Drop Times in 1600 Fight
I sat a number of our better guys out of this one to keep them from
being over-raced. I'll just comment on the best efforts of the
day.
1000 meter run - One of my goals for Ryan McGough is to
see him improve as a distance runner and not pigeonhole himself as a
400/800 specialist. His race here was a step in the right
direction as he seized control of the race with a 31 second final 200
and cruised away to win in 2:43. That is an eight second drop from
his time a month ago. Lucas Roehrborn also had a nice race in
running a 2:53 in his first 1000 ever. I'm expecting a nice drop
in that 1600 time sometime soon from him.
1600 meter run - We
make this race the emphasis each time we go to this meet, and this time
was no different. In the fastest heat, Zach Gates placed second in
a big indoor PR of 4:48 and was followed shortly by Ryan Wojdyla in
4:49.9. Zach still gets too comfortable in the middle of races,
but he is gaining confidence and coming on quickly. Drew Shaler
also broke 5:00 for the first time this season.
In section two, we ran
all of our freshmen against one another, and Zach Stella ended up being
the star of the show. He ran 4:59.9 to get under 5:00 for the
first time this track season and was followed by Christian Zambrano
(5:04), Brian Smith (5:07), Jordan Jarrett (5:09), Adam Vanderweil
(5:09), Mundeep Bawa (5:14), ndrew Clingerman (5:20), and Harmeet Bawa
(5:29). We don't have a star in this group yet, but the depth
keeps coming on. I'm hoping we have 6-7 guys under 5:00 by the end
of the season.
We only ran one man in section three, and Matt Szablowski fit right in
to our group by winning his first high school race ever in what was his
first high school 1600. He led the entire way and recorded a very
impressive 5:18. I definitely can see Matt breaking 5:00 by the end
of the year, and I hope that he starts to see he may have a future in
running.
March 13, 2010 - Distance Improvements Continue to Pile Up
We always have two meets on this weekend, and for most of our guys it is
their best chance to run a fast time during the indoor season. We
run a competitive quad against Proviso, Lyons Township, and Prospect on
Friday night on Proviso's 200 meter track, and then our frosh-soph squad
comes back the next day to run in the MSL F/S Invite at Rolling Meadows.
I am extremely pleased with our improvement. Recent runs and
workouts suggest that we are fit from top to bottom, and we just got the
snow off of our track. As we add sharpness, the great times are
going to come on both levels.
For our track team as a whole, we finally
started to see some incremental gains across all event areas. LaQuan
"Q" Bailey had a fantastic night, clearing 6' 4" in the high jump, Chad
Bobbit threw 49' in the shot put in his first meet back from basketball,
and David DiCristofano jumped over 20' in the long jump for the first
time.
Performance Lists - I updated our
Distance
Leaderboards to reflect all of our times from the weekend. Our
primary emphasis was on improving our 3200 meter times, and we can
consider that mission accomplished. The 3200 team race at Proviso
didn't yield any stellar single time from the group (outside of Bollman's
clearly strong 9:35.6), but it did set a solid early season bar for our
guys to move beyond.
Proviso East Quadrangular - Bollman, Bailey, 4 x
400 Relay Achieve IPTT Standards
We have been debating about whether
we want to go to the IPTT indoor meet in two weeks. A number of guys
grabbed qualifiers tonight so it is starting to look a bit more realistic.
If we qualify a 4 x 800 crew next week it could be worth the trip.
4
x 800 meter relay - I gave Kendall Cox a prime role in this relay
after his solid 1:33 600 meter run last week, and he provided a solid PR
anchor to a nice effort. We won in 8:30 behind solid splits from
Ryan McGough (2:04.9), Chano Bernardo (2:06), Zach Gates (2:09), and the
aforementioned Cox (2:10). We are finally going to assemble our best
crew next weekend at the varsity MSL indoor meet.
3200 meter run
- I stacked this race with most of our varsity cross country team in an
effort to get a bunch of guys under 10:00. I also put Alec Bollman
in here with the goal of running sub-9:30. He wanted to get out in
4:45, but that didn't happen as the early pace lagged and the top crew of
Photis Karkalis from Meadows, Ken Halloran from Prospect, and Holt from LT
hit the 1600 around 4:47-4:49. Karkalis took off and gapped the
field sometime in the next 800 meters, and I was a bit disappointed that
Alec didn't try to cover the move. As they went into the last 400,
Halloran came on with a head of steam and put a charge into Alec with 150
meters to go. Bollman kicked hard from there to finish in 9:35.6.
In the end Bols only lost by three seconds to an impressive 9:32.2 effort
from Karkalis. Halloran also recorded a huge PR in 9:38-9:39.
Behind the front pack we attempted to send 7-8 guys out together in 4:55.
The group got complacent early in the second 800, though, and hit the mile
at 4:59. I was hoping for a negative split race from there, but we
just didn't look as crisp as I thought we might. The group kind of
"paced it rather than raced it." Still, the strategy paid off as a
whole because a ton of guys took the lead and forced pace and really
worked together. Holding the group together through 1 1/2 miles
sacrificed some upside times for several in our crew, but it also assured
everyone in the group of a good time. In the end Tim Johnson was our
#2 man in a 55 second PR of 10:03 and change. He was followed by
Ryan Wojdyla (Sr - 10:06), Anthony Gregorio (So - 10:08), Reuben Frey (Jr
- 10:12), A.J. Laskowske (Jr - 10:13), Tim Meincke (So - 10:19), and Jeff
Larson (Sr - 10:20). If you take out the seniors, we run a 16 second
1-5 man split on the core of next year's CC team. I really think
that several of these guys could have run considerably faster in a more
aggressive race, but I have rarely had this many guys near 10:00 at this
time in a track season. As we add faster work and more races, those
times are going to drop dramatically. Great group effort guys!
In
the F/S section, we had to stash a couple of our older guys since the
varsity heat was too big. Erik Bethke ended up taking the win in
10:54 and was followed in short order by Christian Zambrano (Fr - 10:59),
Tirth Patel (Sr - 11:01), and Adam Vanderweil (Fr - 11:05). Mundeep
Bawa also ran a great race to chop 35 seconds off his previous PR.
He finished in 11:23.
800 meter run - Due to our 3200/1600
emphasis, I only ran Andrew Clingerman and Alvaro Colin in this event.
Andrew recorded a 2:15 in his first ever open 800 and managed to place 6th
overall in the varsity competition. Andrew is going to be quite the
400-600-800 guy as he gains experience. Alvaro finished in 2:31.
600 meter dash - Drew Shaler chose to run this race for the first
time in his career and was able to run a solid 1:33.2. That should
translate into continued improvement for his 800/1600 times. The
other exciting thing about this race was the emergence of three new
freshmen. Jordan Jarrett ran a highly competitive 1:36 in his first
high school race while Rob Hank trailed closely behind in 1:38. Matt
Szablowski also looked solid in his 1:41 effort. All three of these
freshmen will add a lot by the end of the year as they get into better
racing shape. All three have only been out a week.
1600 meter
run - Chano was doubling back in this race and attempting to break
4:30 for the first time in his career. Angelos Karkalis from Meadows
was in here gunning for a time, though, and the pace was jacked from the
start. The lead came through in 61.4 and Chano was out in 64.4.
He doesn't usually handle early speed so well, and he ran some backsliding
splits en route to a lifetime best of 4:33.2. He placed fourth
behind Karkalis, Sam Telfer from LT (4:27) and Chris Spudic from Prospect
(4:30).
The other two great races in the varsity section came from
Marcus Garcia and Lucas Roehrborn. Marcus is a bit injury prone and
has been on the shelf as of late, but he is a ferocious competitor who
battled to a 4:46 clocking. Not bad for a sophomore in only his
second track race! Lucas is also returning from injury and his 4:51
was only a couple of tenths off of his outdoor PR from last year.
The rest of our varsity struggled a bit. McGough and Gates looked
less than fresh doubling back from the 3200 relay, and Erich Kuerschner
struggled with some dizziness and illness. In the exhibition heat,
we did get a nice 5:01 from Brian Sund in his return from an ankle injury.
In the F/S race Peter Tomkiewicz competed for the win with a lot of fire
and ended up with a second place finish and a nice 4:54 lifetime PR.
Peter's long runs and workouts have been great over the last three weeks,
and it's sweet to see his work starting to pay off. Another young
man who is just discovering his talent is Zach Stella. He laid off
the pace way too far in the first 800 meters, but he came on in the second
half of the race to run a lifetime PR of 5:02. Brian Smith went out
hard after it in his first race back from basketball, and I loved his
aggression en route to a 5:09. Give him a couple weeks of running
and those times will drop quickly. Other big PRs were recorded by
Spencer Much (5:39) and Sebastian Ramirez (5:37).
4 x 400 meter relay - We had to take some lumps in the 400 and
200 as we stacked our 4 x 400 relay for a run at IPTT automatic
qualifying. We needed to run 3:32.0 to get in automatically.
Kyle Marrison was a bit bit overzealous with a 24.6 first 200, but he hung
on gamely to finish in 53.7. Terry Halloran ran the great split for
us on second leg (Telly Halloran's old stomping ground by the way) as he
moved us to the lead in a huge career best of 52.1. Dan Schweikert
lost the lead just past the 200, but he fought hard to get the stick to
Alec just a step behind LT. Bollman had to fire hard after LT's
sprinter anchor, and he ended up ceding the lead at the 200 meter mark.
He built on him down the backstretch and catapulted off of the last turn
to come by on the outside and win the race. His 52.7 leg brought us
home in 3:32.5. That time will probably get us into the IPTT meet.
Bols' 52.7 split is a solid improvement over his 54.0 indoor best from
last year at this meet.
MSL F/S Invite at Rolling Meadows - Distance Crew Piles Up the
Points
We ran all five of our best sophomores in fresh individual
events in this one after they all ran hard the night before at Proviso.
Our goals were a bit ambitious considering the MSL competition: we wanted
to win the 3200, 800, and 1600 runs. In the end our adversaries from
Barrington made that impossible, but we gave it a good run.
4 x 800
meter relay - I use this relay each year to get a bunch of
developmental guys into another race, and this year was no different.
I ran four freshmen in here, and they managed to place fourth in 9:30.
Zach Stella dropped his 800 meter PR three more seconds down to 2:17, and
he was supported by Adam Vanderweil (2:26), Christian Zambrano (2:23), and
Brian Smith (2:22). All four of these guys learned something about
the intensity of running the 800, and it was great experience for all of
them to feel the intensity of MSL competition.
3200 meter run -
This race was a bit denuded of competition since so many of the best guys
chose to run the 1600 instead. That opened the door for Peter and
Marcus to go 1-2, and they walked right through. Their 10:24 and
10:27 clockings are the fastest times I have ever had guys run at this
meet. They got a game challenge from Barrington's tough frosh Ryan
Burgoon, but our guys managed to work together and put some distance on
him from 600 meters to go. More importantly, these two times would
have put both these guys in the 10:10-10:20 range had they been in the
team race on Friday night. That gives us seven returnees between
10:03 and 10:27. Not bad for March 13.
800 meter run - Tim
Johnson doesn't have a lot of experience running the open 800 so it was
about time for him to get a big dose of it. He did. The pace
lagged as no one really wanted to go for it, and Tim sat behind it rather
than pushing (probably on some distance coach's bad advice...okay my
fault). When the move from Barrington's Nolan Wojtowicz came just
past the 400 meters, he wasn't able to snap his speed like Nolan and
Hersey's Chris Colletto. Timmy J ended up third in a PR of 2:10.8,
but he certainly can run much better and more competitively the next time
around.
400 meter dash - Andrew Clingerman's 57.0 from last week
got him into the fastest of five heats, and he made good on this seed time
by finishing third overall in the conference as a frosh. More
importantly he equaled his PR from earlier on a smaller and tighter track.
Rob Hank also had a nice debut in this race, winning his heat in 61.1.
1600 meter run - This race was certainly the highlight distance
event of the day. Meincke and Gregorio matched up against
Barrington's super soph Eric Peterson (4th in MSL varsity cross), BG's
Jereme Atchison (CC state qualifier) and Taras Didenko (10:00 3200 guy as
a frosh), and Hersey's stellar frosh Robert Somary (4:41 last week at
York). The race was actually quite comical because all of these guys
have nice pedigrees, but none of them seemed to know what to do in the
opening part of a big race against one another. They all kind of
fumbled through the 400 in 72 before coming through the 800 in a rather
lackluster 2:25. Hersey's Tim Phillips and I had a good laugh about
how everyone looked so out of place being "the guy." Trust me, all
of these MSL guys will know how to be that guy before long. In the
end, Peterson moved with great authority at the 1000 meter mark to gap the
field. The 10 meter gap he built right there lasted the entire rest
of the race as Tim Meincke could never get back to within more than 5
meters the rest of the way. Gregorio and Atchison waged a spirited
battle (one fought many times before in CC) as they finished in a near
dead heat. Anthony ended up 4th in 4:50 while Meincke's 4:48 was
good for 2nd.
March 9, 2010 - Bollman, Bernardo, Johnson Lead Solid Distance
Effort at York
The York Invite is always our first real test of
the track season, and it is always a bit shocking to head inside to a big
meet and see how we look against teams who are a lot sharper than us.
We run everything on neighborhood streets so we tend to lag behind some of
our rivals with field houses. Still, we held our own, and I was
quite happy with where we are at this point in the season. Our
upside is always huge from this point on, and I was proud of how we fought
up and down the lineup with most guys setting huge indoor PRs.
Miles
Update - I posted the Miles for Week 5 as well as the Mileage
Progression for the track season thus far.
Performance List Update
- I added times from the York Invite to our
Leaderboards.
York Invite - Bollman's 4:22.8 Highlights a Nice
Opening Invite
1600 meter run - I usually go in the order of
events, but this race was by far the most exciting of the day.
York's Jack Driggs is certainly a favorite for the 1600 state title this
year if he chooses that race, and he has been running really well indoors.
This was only Alec's second meet of the season (he was ill for our opener)
so we knew he would lack some of Driggs' race sharpness. Driggs took
the race through a solid opener (65.5) and a pedestrian second split
(69.3) for a 2:14.8 halfway split. He looked nice and was just
cruising with Alec relaxed and in tow behind him. We had decided
before the race to try a move at the 1000 and then try and drop the tempo
each 200 from there on out. I thought that Alec might lose running
this way, but it seemed our best bet due to our lack of speed fitness.
He took the lead at the 1000 and then Driggs tucked in as they hit 1200 in
3:23.5 (68.7). At 250 meters out, Driggs put his head down, and
everyone could feel that electric move coming. He went for it all
out, and I was right in Alec's face telling him to shift. He did.
At 150 out, Alec buried it and the two went side by side down the
backstretch. Bols kept charging, but Driggs broke him 25-30 meters
out to win by half a second. Still, Alec's 4:22.8 was a five second
lifetime PR indoors and was a time he did not equal until April 17th last
year. Even without any real speedy work, he closed the last 400
meters in 59.3! I was really proud of his competitiveness in this
race - he ran it all the way to the line - and Alec ended up with the
third fastest time in the state currently.
The other huge story in this
event was the inevitable breakout race for Tim Johnson. It has been
a not so guarded secret around our camp that Tim was coming on all winter
long, and he simply demolished his 4:48 lifetime best in running 4:33.9.
This is the best sophomore indoor time I've had a guy run since Mat Smoody
ran 4:30. My goal with Tim is to get him to see how good he really
is (and will be) so I gave him a simple race plan: stick at the front end
of the race until 1200 meters and then see what he could do. He
executed perfectly, hitting splits of 65.8-2:15.7 (69.9), 3:25.3 (69.7),
and 4:33.9 (68.6). He was right in it with one of the Hedman twins
from York and Prospect's Ken Halloran until the quarter to go mark.
This time puts Tim up there as the third best sophomore time in the state
at the moment. Edwardsville's Garrett Sweat has run 4:30 and change
for the apparent state lead.
4 x 800 meter relay - As usual I
pulled all of our top guys into the open events and left the 3200 relays
to our JV, frosh-soph, and cross country varsity. We have an excess
of really good 3200 meter runners so Gregorio and Laskowske both ended up
in our B relay. Those guys ran 9:00 behind solid splits from Andrew
Clingerman (2:15.0- 65.8 + 69.2), Anthony Gregorio (2:14.4 - 63.9 + 70.6),
Lucas Roehrborn (2:13.6 - 64.0 + 69.6), and A.J. Laskowske (2:17.1 - 66.8
+ 70.4). Our freshman Clingerman was running in his first 800 meters
ever, and he will have a really bright future in this event and many
others. He later recorded a 57.2 4 x 400 split. The latter
three guys were all coming back from injuries and getting in a rust-buster
for the coming weeks. It was good to see Laskowske race at a
controlled percentage after missing two weeks of training.
In the A
relay, I gave a number of guys a chance to earn future 4 x 800 spots, and
everyone in the relay ran a lifetime indoor best. Zach Gates dropped
six seconds from the previous week (2:09.5 - 60.0 + 68.6) and was followed
by Erich Kuerschner (2:13.8 - 62.2 + 71.6), Ryan Wojdyla (2:09.6 - 60.4 +
68.2), and Drew Shaler (2:12.9 - 64.3 + 68.6). Gates and Wo-Ho are
really rounding into shape quickly, and I expect all of their times to
keep dropping as we finally get in some speedier work on the track.
3200 meter run - Chano Bernardo has a lot of drive in his heart for
redemption this season after back to back track and cross country
campaigns that didn't meet his expectations. Saturday's race was
certainly a step in the right direction as he ran 9:39.7 to place fourth
overall in a solid field. His race goal was to relax in contact with
the top group through the mile and then try to negative split on the way
in. York's Andrew Smith dueled with Naperville North's Bob Guthrie
throughout the race as they attempted to run 9:20, and Chano folded in
nicely to a chase pack comprised of Hoffman Estates' Kyle Gonzales and
Prospect's Chris Spudic. That group hit the 1600 in 4:47 and Chano
really went to work in the third half. He and Gonzo dropped Spudic
and kept surging up toward the two leaders. Chano ran the third half
in 2:23.8 to get onto the tail of the two leaders at the 1 1/2 mile mark,
but then they started racing rather than pacing and Chano suffered in the
close. He managed a 2:28.8 to finish off his race. Most
importantly, Chano raced with both intelligence and fire, and recent
workouts suggest that he is primed for even better efforts.
Jeff Larson
got a real raw deal as his 10:10 entry time left him two seconds out of
the fast heat. He ended up in the slower heat where he was the class
of the field by far. I made him go out with the group for 1200
meters before sending him to the front. He ran an 80 and a 79 on the
2nd and 3rd quarters before hitting the mile in a pedestrian 5:10.
He negative split 5:06 from there to finish with an indoor PR of 10:16.9.
I am pretty sure that he will smash that time on Friday night as we run
most of our varsity team in this race at Proviso. Check out this
Friday's 3200 lineup: Bollman, Johnson, Larson, Meincke, Laskowske,
Gregorio, Wojdyla, and Frey will all try to work together to break 10:00.
800 meter run - I must say that this race was a bit disappointing
for two factors. One, we just always lack the speed work to run the
800 meters in a competitive way. Two, neither Ryan McGough nor Tim
Meincke listened to the best way to pace an 800 at this time of year.
Both Ryan (2:06.9) and Tim (2:10.8) ran indoor lifetime bests, but our
splits show a lack of patience in how to manage this tough race.
Ryan's splits were 28.6-31.2-33.5-33.7 while Monkey ran
29.1-31.9-34.2-35.6. Both went out way too hard and
suffered a ton as a result. They'll both handle that opening speed
better next time around, but we need to show a little more patience at the
outset in the 800.
600 meter run - Kendall Cox delivered one of
the most satisfying and hopeful efforts of the night as he knocked 5
seconds from his previous 600 meter best to record a 1:33.7. Kendall
is one of those guys who works his tail off and does all of the little
things right, and I am hoping to find a spot where he can score points for
this track team. It looks like the 800 might be a place for him to
do so if he can keep improving and hang on for another tough 200 meters.
Tirth Patel also ran a solid race for a long distance guy, running 1:39.7
to record a lifetime best. Okay, I know it's the only time we've
ever allowed him to run it, but a PR is a PR. Oh yeah, Tirth beat
three people too.
February 28, 2010 - Bolingbrook Dual Results, Miles from Weeks 3
and 4
Our track season is finally getting into gear after the
long winter, and I walked out of Bolingbrook much happier and excited than
I did the previous week at St. Charles. We got Bollman back from his
bout with the flu, and a number of our other walking wounded got back into
action. Teamwise, we lost 80-61 in what is usually an awkward
match-up. Bolingbrook excels in the sprints and the jumps while we
are usually stronger in the long sprints and distance events.
Performance List Updates - I put all of the times from Saturday on our
leaderboards. Our sophs are doing a lot of damage already as
they push the older guys to step up.
Miles Update - I posted the
Miles for Week 3
and Week 4.
Bolingbrook Dual - Meincke and Chano Battle to the Wire in Sweet 1600
3200 meter relay - I put together our best lineup for a bit of a
workout in this one, and they ran well in what amounted to a solo time
trial. We emphasized running in rhythm and trying to run even splits
and save some energy for each guy's individual race. Ryan McGough
cruised a nice 2:10 and was followed by Zach Gates (2:15), Tim Johnson
(2:12), and Alec Bollman (2:09). Our 8:48 was a solid time and bodes
well for our near future in this event.
3200 meter run - I had
planned to pair Anthony Gregorio and Marcus Garcia in this race, but
Marcus came up hurting on Friday morning so I had to scratch him.
Anthony is still returning to form from his late CC injury, and I thought
he did well to time trial a 10:42 all by himself. I know that he was
disappointed, but his time will drop a ton in the next two weeks as he
gets used to racing again. The most impressive effort in this race
had to go to Jake Alberti. Jake dropped down to 11:25 from a
lifetime best of 11:50. His hard work is really starting to pay off.
Adam Vanderwiel recorded an 11:23 finish in his first 3200 ever and looked
solid. His times will come down fast as well.
800 meter run -
Tim Johnson didn't end up having a ton of competition in this one, but
he came back to run 2:11 and lower his time from his 4 x 800 effort.
Tim is in great shape and ready to pop a great 1600 next weekend at the
York Invite. Kendall Cox and Erich Kuerschner also improved relative
to a week ago to take 2nd and 3rd places in 2:17 and 2:19.
600 meter
run - I usually have our best 800 and 1600 meter guys race a 600 at
this meet, and we ended up with a bunch of nice results. Andrew
Clingerman ran 1:36.1 to win the F/S heat and his second race in two
weeks. In the varsity, Alec ran 1:28.6 to win the race and better
his time from a year ago (when he opened fresh in the 600 without a 4 x
800 first). Ryan McGough also continued his nice early season roll.
His 2:10, 1:31, 56 triple blew away his 2:14, 1:39, 64 clockings from last
year. Zach Gates was our third varsity guy in 1:38.3.
1600
meter run - As with last week this ended up being the race of the day.
Our F/S guys kicked things off strongly as Christian Zambrano, Zach
Stella, and Noah Brown battled with a game Bolingbrook runner throughout
the race. In the end we placed 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, but Little Z and
Stella ran 5:04 and 5:05 in their first ever cracks at the high school
1600. We are going to lose Noah to volleyball in a week, but his
5:12 was a real eye opener and shows that he would have a solid career as
a track athlete if he ever chose to go that way.
I am still buzzing
about Tim Meincke's stellar 1600 a day later. Our race plan was to
have Chano take it out in 68-70 and try to run level splits. He
executed the race plan perfectly, and it ensured a good race for all of
our varsity guys. Meincke was supposed to ride on his heels to the
1000 meter mark and then try to come around and make it a race. Did
he ever. He pushed Chano into another gear at the 1000 and the two
battled tightly for the last 1/3 of the race. I thought Chano was
going to break him at the 300 meter mark, but Tim fought hard and launched
a kick in the last 100 that threatened to take it the other way. For
the second week in a row, Chano dug down and found some finishing speed as
he breasted the line an inch or two in front of the challenging sophomore.
I gave both of them 4:41.5 as a finishing time. For Tim, that is a
four second PR from the last meet of outdoor last year. For Chano,
that is two straight narrow wins and thrilling races. Behind the
front two, we recorded a ton of nice times: Wojdyla (4:52), Frey (4:54),
Larson (4:57), Bethke (5:00), Tomkiewicz (5:03), Shaler (5:03), and
Baumgartner (5:13).
1600 meter relay - This race usually ends up being a barn-burner
as the two squads match up in an event where we are pretty equal in terms
of talent. Not so this year. Kyle Marrison ran a spirited race
on leadoff, keeping his inside and keeping it close versus Bolingbrook's
best guy. Terry Halloran then ran a beautiful 55 second leg to give
us a lead we would never relinquish. McGough (56) and Bollman (54)
extended the lead as we finished in a solid 3:43.2.
In the distance 4 x 400s, we overwhelmed the facility with our 8 teams
and had to do battle in two separate heats. In the end Sebastian
Ramirez was the hero of the day as he anchored the unit of Zach Gates,
Alvaro Colin, Christian Zambrano, and himself to victory.
NXN Regionals - Boys Place
10th in First Attempt at National Qualifying
For the first time ever, we traveled to Terre Haute, IN to run in the Nike
Cross Regional meet held at the Laverne Gibson Championship course.
The Division I national title meet in college is run at this course so it
was a real treat to see our guys run at the same place. We finished
10th overall, but only eight points out of seventh. We also had two
guys finish in the top 13 in the open race where our team finished 5th
overall. I started lists for NXN Midwest Regional
Team Finishes
and Top
Performances. Check 'em out.
Above: Anthony Gregorio is honored as one of the ten best frosh-soph
runners in the Midwest Regional. He had the 9th best frosh-soph time
on the day.
