Mileage Updates - I put up
Miles for Week 7 and
updated the
Mileage Progression.
History Updates - I updated the
MSL Division champion
page to reflect the regular season wins by Prospect and ourselves.
We now lead the MSL with 22 division titles. Schaumburg is second
with 14 while Prospect inched closer to them with 12. Schaumburg has
still won the most
overall MSL titles with 13, but we could come a step closer to them
and tie Fremd for second if we are able to win our seventh in a row and
eighth overall in two weeks.
I also updated the history pages which reflect individual and team
champions at the Palatine Invitational. Check out the
freshmen,
sophomore,
junior varsity, and
varsity individual winners as well as the team champions on the
freshmen,
sophomore,
junior varsity, and
varsity levels.
Varsity Race -
Ten Second Split Nails Down a Team Victory
It
became obvious early Thursday morning that we were going to run in the
rain. The only issue was that Biese Park now has a lightning
detector so I was a bit worried. Lightning detectors tend to detect
more rain than lightning and lead to postponements and cancellations.
Conditions at the course were wet, dreary, and cold, but there was no
lightning or thunder in the vicinity. About 15 minutes before the
varsity girls race was going to start (during the girls open race actually),
the detector went off and forced a meet postponement. They pulled
the open girls off of the course about 100 meters from the finish, which
seemed a bit ridiculous.
We then went into a
coach's council trying to decide how we could get the meet in before
darkness set in. Just as we were getting close to cancelling it, the
detector blew an all clear and we decided to just run the races at the
same time with the boys taking off 6 minutes after the girls. It was
a bit wild actually. Our #1 ranked girls team was trying to beat #3
Schaumburg for the division, and I hardly got to watch because we were
going at it simultaneously. They won 25-30 by the way to secure
their own MSL West title.
Our guys hooked up early
and tailed Cogswell from Barrington and Lesiewicz from Schaumburg.
Pat took off just past the mile mark, and our guys just stayed together
and ran hard tempo. Just past the 1 1/2 mile mark, our trio of
Larson, Gregorio, and Laskowske wore down Cogswell to move into 4th, 5th,
and 6th places. The race was pretty much over from there. Our
guys outside the top five kept working, and Ryan Wojdyla was able to get
up and get Cogswell on the way in. He also finished in front of
Schaumburg's #2 to give us six in front of him. Reuben Frey held on
to be our 7th while sophomores Tim Johnson and Tim Meincke ran well to
finish as our 8th and 9th guys. These young guys will keep improving
and may challenge our top seven as the season rolls into its championship
phase.
The next six weeks should be nothing but exciting.
We defend our MSL title two weeks from today against conference foes
Prospect, Fremd, Schaumburg, and others. It will be a tough road the
rest of the way, but our guys are fit, healthy, and ready to challenge
anyone who comes our way.
Freshmen-Sophomore
Race - Jarrett's Strong Race Proves the Difference
It is always interesting to see how a F/S team will react
to adversity. Freshmen especially are not always mentally ready to
run in adverse conditions or compete outside of their normal comfort zone.
To add to the pressure, we moved up our top three sophomores to varsity.
As usual we expected to still win the race. Schaumburg ran one guy
up and Barrington ran four so the race was not a total indicator of each
school's F/S team.
We ended up prevailing over Schaumburg on 6th man
tie-breaker after the score went to a 28-28 tie. Jordan Jarrett and
Adam Vanderwiel were both able to get in ahead of Schaumburg's #5 man
while Christian Zambrano put in a great kick to hold off their #4 man.
Marcus Garcia and Peter Tomkiewicz fought valiantly against their top two
guys, but both of them lost their match-ups. It was quite the race.
Jarrett's tough kick into the chute put a one point bump on Schaumburg,
and he also became the tie break winner as a result. What a great
testament to how every guy matters in a CC race.
Our freshmen were a bit freaked out by the weather and by homecoming weak
and lacked a bit of focus in this one. I am glad that we won, but a
close loss also would have been a good lesson for this crew. Still,
we won each of our two duals to close the season with a 6-0 record on the
F/S level.
September 28, 2009 - Sophs Win at York F/S Invite,
Freshmen Third
We continued our recent run
of success as a program by going into York and winning the sophomore race
at the tough York F/S Invite. We had not won any level of this meet
since Coach Miller took Tony Rakaric and Co. to victory in the freshman
race in 1997. Congrats to our sophs for pulling off a tough win!
Anthony Gregorio took the overall win in 9:51, which had to be a really
solid time in the blustery conditions. Tim Johnson showed that he is
rounding into form at the right time with a 6th place finish in 10:03, and
he was followed by Tim Meincke (10th in 10:16), Marcus Garcia (17th in
10:22), and Peter Tomkiewicz (24th in 10:43).
Our
freshmen took third behind a nice pack effort. Host York won with 40
points and Naperville North was second with 95. We totaled 105
points behind a tight pack in 17th, 18th, 21st, 22nd, and 25th. Our
five scorers were Brian Smith (17th in 10:47), Christian Zambrano (18th in
10:49), Jordan Jarrett (21st in 10:53), Adam Vanderwiel (22nd in 10:55),
and Joe Mars (25th in 11:05).
It is always good to
perform well at this meet because I think it showcases the best young guys
from the four best programs in the state right now: York, Naperville
North, Neuqua Valley, and Palatine. Over the last five years these
four schools have performed the best on a consistent basis in the state
meet so it is great to be way up in the mix with their young guys.
The next couple of years should be a lot of fun.
I
updated the info below on the Conant Dual races and also added a bunch of
pictures from the Palatine Invite to the main page. Enjoy.
Mileage Update - I put up the
Miles for Week 6
as well as the new
Mileage
Progression.
Results Update - I linked
all of the race results from last Saturday on our
Results page. They are also available
at
Kompusport.com.
September 27, 2009 - Boys Place Top Three on All
Four Levels at Palatine Invite
As usual
the Palatine Invite was one of our highlight races for the season, and I
can report with great satisfaction that our guys achieved at a high level
in all four races. We placed 2nd in the freshmen race, 3rd in the
sophomore, 3rd in the varsity, and 1st in the junior varsity. I can
say with great enjoyment to all of our JV guys past and present that we finally did it!
Every year the JV get all hyped up to go out and beat York's JV, and every
year we get 2nd. We have been 2nd or 3rd in the JV for six straight
years so it was a huge victory for our program to get our next wave of
guys the championship after so many years of trying.
The varsity ran better than last week and still did not
manage to crack Loyola Academy or York. The final scores ended up
being Loyola 47, York 56, and Palatine 85. Neither the guys nor I
like to lose, but we have to look at the positives we can take away from
this race. A.J. Laskowske returned to full strength and ran right
off of Alec and Chano, Gregorio ran the fastest sophomore time of the
entire day, and Ryan Wojdyla continued his magical season by running
15:10. Still, it was not enough, and we will need to continue
working hard to crack that tier of top three teams and win a state trophy.
We have been beaten now only by Loyola, York, and Neuqua Valley. At
least we distanced ourselves from the rest of a tough field. Lyons
placed 4th with 179 points.
We had 14 guys run
under 16:00 for the 2.92 mile layout. This was the most we have ever
had. I put together a
Program Strength
Chart for the Palatine Invite so you can compare our top 20 times
versus our other teams since 2002. We also look to have one of
our fastest teams ever returning for next year. We have Laskowske
(14:45), Gregorio (15:05), Frey (15:29), Bethke (15:44), McGough (15:45),
Johnson (15:47), and Meincke (15:51) leading the way as our top seven
candidates for next year. Way to go guys!
REMINDERS: All frosh-soph guys will be going to York tomorrow for
the F/S Invite, and all varsity and JV guys will be running Morning Loop
tempo. Come ready to get after it.
Picture Updates - I put together
a
gallery of pics taken by Steve Schalla. I also have a ton of
pictures from Donny Mac, but they crash my computer every time I try to
transfer them to my hard drive. I'll keep working on those.
The files are a bit too big.
History Updates - I updated all
four of the lists I keep for performances at Deer Grove. Excepting
the top seven who will run in the IHSA Regional we host, the rest of the
team will not run on our course for the remainder of the season.
Check out where your best time now stands on the
Palatine career
list or see if you were able to crack the
Top 50 Palatine
performances at Deer Grove East. Three of our freshmen made it
on to Top 50
performances on our F/S course. Lastly, I updated the
Top 50 All-Time
Best list, which factors in all performances at Deer Grove East since
2001. Nico Composto's 14:12 winning time placed as the 8th best
performance, but he is the 5th best individual performer. It now
takes 14:32 to be one of the top 50 performers on our course.
Palatine Invite - Boys Excel on All Four Levels
Boys Varsity
- 23 Second Split Nabs 3rd Place Finish
We
knew that this varsity race was going to be a tall order, but we
approached the opportunity to run the two best teams in the state with a
lot of enthusiasm. Deer Grove East is our house and the Palatine
Invite is our show so we wanted to have our best effort. We
certainly ran well and have a lot of room to keep improving. Our top
five ran fast (14:42, 14:42, 14:45, 15:01, 15:05), and we finished with a
sweet 23 second split.
Obviously, short
splits can be deceiving and often indicate that a team's front runners may
not be getting it done. Chano and Alec certainly ran better than
last week, but they need to keep working to jump in with the top 10-15
caliber guys that we see each week. They placed 8th and 9th in the
same time to give us a solid 1-2 punch, but the times they ran indicate
that they will be at the margins of All-State. I know they will keep
coming on as the season progresses so this was a solid step forward.
A.J. Laskowske returned to top form after being
sick the week before, and his emergence has certainly made us really
strong in a big meet. Now, the trick is to get A.J. and Jeff to run
great on the same day so we can have a chance at beating the very best
teams. At Peoria Notre Dame, Jeff ran outstanding to finish in 15:15
while A.J. was just solid in 15:22. At Palatine A.J. had the great
race (14:45) while Jeff just ran solid (15:01). Imagine what the
team can look like if they both run 14:45-14:50 on the same day! We
can make that happen on the right day.
The other
trick we need to pull is getting our #5 runner right on top of Larson when
he has his best day. Gregorio (15:05) and Wojdyla (15:10) are both
on extreme upswings as they continue their breakout years. I love
nothing more than a top notch sophomore during the championship part of
the season, and I know that Anthony can get up with A.J. and Jeff.
Does anybody reading this who knows Ryan "Wo-Ho" Wojdyla believe what is
happening? Dilla has the magic this season, and he continues to
astound. Every year our program produces one of these guys, and my
pride in his emergence knows no bounds. What a testament to hard
work and belief in oneself.
The other fun thing
about this season is seeing our guys compete to get into the top 7.
Reuben held that spot with a 15:29, but Smith (15:43), Bethke (15:43),
McGough (15:45), Johnson (15:47), and Meincke (15:51) are hot on his tail.
Any one of those guys could taper big and get way up in the mix. It
is a luxury to have so much depth at our disposal. This will also
serve us well as we try to win all three levels of the MSL for the second
year in a row.
Boys Junior Varsity - JV Wins Best Invisible Trophy Yet
We have been on a quest to win the Junior Varsity race at
the Palatine Invite since 2003. Every year we seem to have a great
JV team only to get wiped out by York in this race. I knew that we
could do it one of these years, and I am so proud that these were the boys
to get it done. It says something about the focus of our program
when I am most excited about winning the JV race at an invite. As
coaches we all make it a point to coach every athlete on the team, and
nothing ratifies this approach more than the hard work, belief, and tough
racing of our guys outside the top seven.
This squad was elevated by the return of senior captain
Justin Smith, and he led our charge with a lifetime best of 15:43.
York's top two guys managed to get 2nd and 3rd in 15:37 and 15:38, but our
boys packed it up after Smith to give us the necessary edge. Erik
Bethke continued to drop time down to 15:44 while Ryan McGough showed that
he is rounding into form at the right time of year by running a huge PR of
15:45. All three of these guys were on our state team last year and
look to be making bids for the top seven.
There were many great races on Saturday (see Joe Mars -
freshmen race), but the two best efforts might have come from Brian Sund
and Tirth Patel. Both of these guys have killed themselves all
summer to get in their best shape, often putting in more than 70-80 mile
weeks. It is always an amazing sight to see a young man's work
become available in a race, and the finishes of these two were a great
example. Sund was with York's #3 and he put the pedal down at 400
meters to go and left him. The race then came down to Tirth doing
the same thing. He passed York's #4 and another runner from LT to
seal the deal. Sund was bent over vomiting after the race, but I am
sure that empty stomach filled with pride in his hard run for his team
soon after. We won 33-38.
Drew Shaler (16:07) put a good kick in to nearly catch
York's #5 while Zach Gates (16:08), Erich Kuerschner (16:17), and Kendall
Cox (16:31) all ran course PRs. Another huge effort came from my man
Jake Bogdanowicz who has been our de facto manager for much of the season
as we tried to avoid a metatarsal stress fracture. He decided to
spike up and run at his senior Palatine Invite and ran to a monster PR of
18:42. McCall (18:11), Alberti (17:32), and Pasowicz (17:51) also
set new bests on the home course. Congrats to all of the JV! I
could not be more proud of your efforts in this race.
Boys
Sophomore - Super Top Four Pave the Way for a 3rd Place Finish
We faced a bit of a challenge in this race as we moved
Anthony Gregorio up to the varsity level, which left us one man short of a
possible winner. The drop-off from our top five sophs to our number
six man is quite big. In the end we placed 3rd as a team, and the
challenge of replacing Gregorio proved to be the best thing about the
race. I charged the rest of the sophomores with going out
aggressively and getting high up in the race. I knew that one of them
would hang on and be our #5. Ryan Erdmann ended up being our guy,
and I was very proud of him. He placed 96th overall in a great time
of 17:50. His time absolutely demolished his personal best.
I'm not sure Ryan has ever broken 20:00 before, and his 17:50 equates to
about a 18:20 on a true three mile course.
Of
course, Ryan's effort would not have mattered so much if our top four
didn't get it done. I really challenged Tim Johnson and Tim Meincke
to show some fire after rather complacent runs last week at Peoria Notre
Dame, and they responded with much better aggressiveness. They were
both leading at the 1 1/2 mile mark and were still in the lead group at 2
miles. In the end Johnson kicked past his fellow Tim to finish 6th
in a nice time of 15:48. Meincke (15:51) finished right after him in
7th place.
This squad was also strengthened a
great deal by the presence of Marcus Garcia. Marcus is one of our
toughest competitors, and that mentality often causes him to push himself
to the point of injury in training. He returned to serve as our 4th
man and finish 20th. Peter Tomkiewiecz also continued his strong
return from early season injury to place 17th. Barrington ended up
winning the team title with 81 points as they put together their full
frosh-soph squad to take the win. St. Charles North was second with
96 points while we finished 3rd with 139. Still, we led both of
those schools through four guys (50-53-67), and Gregorio was the top
sophomore in the varsity race. This bodes well for our future, but
this race also showed that Barrington will be a load to handle in the MSL
West over the next couple of years. They had a couple of freshmen
show very well, and it will be interesting to see how our combined F/S
squad matches up with them in the MSL Conference meet.
Boys Freshmen
- Youngsters Excel in First Palatine Invite Test
I noticed last week at Peoria Notre Dame that York's F/S
top seven had only one name I could find in any results from last year.
This meant two things: that their sophomores were a bit down and that
their freshmen team was probably stellar. I was right. Our
freshmen placed five guys in the top 27 and seven in the top 40 to score
80 points, but York just demolished the field. The young Dukes
placed fifteen men in the top 40 and ten guys in the top 25 to win easily
with 28 points. We obviously will have a tall order in the
future. Alex Mimlitz from York (12:46) and Nicholas Korhumel (12:49)
both ran under the old freshmen meet record of 12:54, which was set by
York's David Montgomery in 2002. Lake Zurich finished third with 138
points.
The story of this race certainly had to be the gutty
performance of Joey Mars. Joe has been slowly discovering
his talent over the course of the season, and I challenged everyone
outside of our normal top four guys to get out aggressively and try to
hang on. Joe finally went after a race from the gun, and he
absolutely floored me through the early and middle parts of his race with
his conviction and belief. He ended up finishing as our #4 man and
breaking 14:00 for the first time. I know that I am always inspired
to see one of our guys figure it out on the course, and this was a real
special moment for me. Hopefully Joe can continue to show his
immense talent as our season runs toward the conference meet.
Our usual front-runners on the freshmen team certainly held
up their end of the bargain as all four of them ran their fastest times
yet at Palatine. Brian Smith again led the way with a 7th place
finish and new course PR of 13:34. Christian Zambrano (13:41), Adam
Vanderwiel (13:44), and Jordan Jarrett (13:58) combined with Mars to give
us a solid team score. Behind our front pack of five, we had a ton
of great races. Zach Stella pushed through some lingering heel pain
to finish in 14:11 while Mundeep Bawa (14:17), Harmeet Bawa (14:27), and
Andrew Clingerman (14:27) packed it up for much of the race and looked
really good. Harmeet especially ran well, producing his best effort
of the year by far. Tyler Squeo ran okay to finish in 14:50, but he
will need to have whatever Joe Mars had for breakfast the next time.
When freshmen learn to get aggressive, the good times and placed usually
follow.
Conant Dual - Palatine wins 18-38
There
isn't much to report on this one as we were able to get past Conant
without running three of our top five guys. I challenged the JV and
back end of our top seven to go out and get us a win, and they certainly
got it done. The lead pack of Jeff Larson, A.J. Laskowske, Reuben
Frey, and Ryan Wojdyla finished 1-2-3-4 as all four ran course PR's
ranging from 15:28-15:30. Erik Bethke broke 16:00 for the fifth time
to serve as our 5th man. Conant was able to put four guys in front
of him though and served notice that they will have some tough men to
contend with in the near future.
September 20, 2009 - Pirates Place 2nd at Peoria
Notre Dame
We knew that Loyola Academy would provide us with a stern
test on Saturday, and after the race I am not sure we could have done much
more to beat them on this day. We certainly did not run our best
race, but they delivered the best performance in the history of this
Invite in my mind: 14:35, 14:42, 14:45, 15:05, 15:37 is incredibly good
for September 19. The final margin was 79-133. We outdistanced
third place Oak Park-River Forest (158) by 25 points, but that is also
deceiving because they had a young man win the F/S race in 15:31.
Had he been in the varsity race, we would have ended up in a tie.
We had more bright spots than not, but three of our top
four can run significantly better. Both Alec and Chano need to do
more for us up top (especially Chano), and I think A.J. was still a bit
off after being sick for much of the preceding week. Jeff Larson's
race was the brightest spot - he ran 15:15 to record a massive PR and show
that he is ready to step up and take his running toward an All-State
level. He will keep coming as we head toward the taper.
Sophomore Anthony Gregorio recorded a 15:27 in his first varsity invite
ever and ended up as our fifth man. Ryan Wojdyla (15:44) and Reuben
Frey (15:56) ran solid races as our 6th and 7th to give us all seven guys
under 16:00.
I think our finish was absolutely impacted by the way I
had us run the race and by the events preceding the race. We just
looked flat in the second half of the race and part of that comes from how
hard we attacked in the opening and middle. Our guys probably were
out over their heads, but I like it that way in September. Chano and
Alec (2:15), Jeff (2:17), A.J. and Anthony (2:19), and Wo-Ho and Reuben
(2:23) all overcooked the first 800 a bit, but those are the splits
they'll need to be able to run in the state meet so that doesn't bother
me.
All of our guys were under 5:00 at the mile with our
lead three being through in 4:47-4:49. We came by the 1 1/2 mark
with our top five all under 15:00 pace, but we still weren't winning the
race as a team. Loyola had their #4 right on Larson while Chano and
Alec failed to make the jump to get into the lead group of 9 guys.
Had they moved to get with Loyola's #3 their races may have turned out
differently. Certainly, they will need to be more assertive and get
in the right competitive groups from now on. It was a bit
disappointing to see two veteran CC guys miss a break like that. We
had Loyola's #5 by a lot in the back loop, but he closed up on our guys by
the finish. Anthony only got him by 10 seconds and that wasn't
enough to make up for losses at all four of the other scoring positions.
Fremd Dual - Varsity Boys Keep the Streak Behind 5 in
Top 7
Our guys put the pedal to the
metal and the race became a very fast one from the gun. We had 8
guys by the mile in 5:01 or better and 15 under 5:06. The strategy
worked. We threw a couple of Fremd's top six, Ricketts and Smaga, off the
back of the real race by that point and isolated Fremd's top four against
our top seven. We had our back end barrel in the second mile, and we
had seven in the top eight by just past the two mile mark. I shut
Bollman and Chano down with 800 meters left, but to Fremd's credit they
never shut it down and competed all the way into the line.
Fremd's Spiros Angelakos is a very tough runner, and we
knew he would be a tough customer in this dual meet. He clawed his
way back into the race and caught not only our #3, Jeff Larson, but went
up and passed Andy Mack, Fremd's #1, on the way into the finish.
Coach Bruce told me that no Fremd guy had ever run under 15:40 on this
course, and two of them would do so on this day as he and Mack finished in
15:35 and 15:39. Still, it was not enough. Alec and Chano
finished in twin 15:31's while we shut the door behind them very quickly:
Larson 15:43, Laskowske 15:48, and Gregorio 15:52. The score ended
up Palatine 21, Fremd 38 with us going 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10. Reuben
Frey ran a beautiful race to not only hold off their #4 guy, but also to
secure a spot on our PND trip. Jeff Larson also ran an admirable
race as he tried to distance himself from Fremd's kickers. Ryan
Wojdyla also ran a great race to nearly catch Aaron Ferst, who was Fremd's
#3 runner on this day. Overall, we took it to them, dictated the
pace of the race, and ended up with a big win.
September 12,
2009 - Results from Hoffman Dual and The Palatine
Hoffman is always a team to be
respected, especially since they have pumped out a number of tough front
runners in recent years. They returned Kyle Gonzales, 13th in the
MSL last year and a 9:40s two miler, so we wanted to be ready to meet his
challenge. Our race plan was to follow for the first mile and then
try and run under 5:00 for the second mile. Gonzales let a couple of
his teammates lead through a pedestrian 5:35 first mile before we opened
it up.
We shot to a 1-6 lead just after the mile,
and our guys kept pulling away as we crushed the second mile. Chano
split a 4:49 to lead the charge, and it became apparent in the back loop
that Gonzales' fitness was not where it has been in the past. He
faded as our guys kept charging and we ended up 1-10 by the end.
Ryan Wojdyla and Justin Smith continued their runs of success by finishing
in 15:52 and 15:57, and our split from 1-5 looked pretty: Chano 15:27,
Bollman 15:36, Larson 15:43. Wojdyla 15:52, and Smith 15:57 for a 30
second gap. Note as well that Laskowske sat out sick and that
Gregorio ran in the under-level race. That probably puts our gap at
30 seconds 1-7. Obviously, Chano and Alec can run much faster (they
both ran slower than at Hinsdale on a short course), but I also think our
back end can turn it way up. To become a really dangerous team, that
split needs to be in the 20-30 second range when our front runners are at
their best. I think we can do it.
September 7, 2009 - Hinsdale Results and More
Pictures
We had a solid meet today at the
Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invite. We placed fourth on the sophomore
level, second on the varsity level, and fourth in the freshmen race.
Overall, the meet was very fast this year with fifteen guys under 15:50 in
the varsity race. Aaron Beattie of Neuqua Valley won the varsity
race in 15:08 while Mike Fahey of Glenbard East took the sophomore race in
15:56. The freshman race was very fast and deep. We had eight
guys run 12:00 or better and got fourth. Our frosh ran way faster
than most every class we've taken there in nine years but walked away
without a trophy.
I was really pleased with our
overall effort. Our varsity ran well. Any time that we have
four to five guys under 16:00 at this meet, we end up in contention for a
state trophy. Other than 2004's great run (minus Finley), this team
probably performed better than any of our other squads. We finished
in 15:24, 15:25, 15:30, 15:57, and 16:01 and got beaten by 20 points.
My conclusion? We are good, but Neuqua is just better at this point
in the season. Hopefully we can give them a better run when we meet
again.
September 3, 2009 - Boys Sweep Wheeling to Pick Up
First Win
We finally got to compete on
Tuesday night after another long summer of training, and the results were
impressive on both levels. The varsity boys swept the first 16 spots
to achieve a perfect score of 15-50 while our F/S won handily behind the
1-2 finish of Tim Meincke and Tim Johnson. After a rather hilarious
and embarrassing detour on the course, our girls varsity also managed to
go 1-6 and win the race. We roll into action again on Saturday at
the powerful Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invite against national and state
power Neuqua Valley. There should be good races on all levels.
