May 15, 2010 - The Palatine Pirates Win the 2010 Mid-Suburban League Title!

Wow.  I have a lot to say about the perfect night we all enjoyed together last night.  I was physically rendered speechless by how well we performed last night.  My voice is shredded.  I have been thinking about our potential to win this meet ever since this past September during cross country season.  It takes a lot for me to think about track during CC, but I just had this feeling that we could be special this track season.  We have 33 seniors on the roster, and many of them had participated on our MSL winning CC and soccer teams or on our Class 8A playoff football team.  I knew that we did not have as much talent as some other squads, but the entire coaching staff thought that we could be more than the sum of our parts.  That is exactly what happened in this conference meet.

As the field events were wrapping up and we had finished the 100 meter dash, I had this crazy thought running through my head: we are going to pitch a perfect game tonight.  It just felt like we could do no wrong, but everyone knows that the one rule of a baseball perfect game is that you never mention a perfect game while it is in progress.  I just could not get this thought out of my head, and I worked for the rest of the night through this perfect evening to keep all of my emotion, pride, and love for our team bottled inside.  I have won state trophies with our CC team and eight other MSL titles in CC and track, but this one will always be special to me.  We placed ninth in the MSL Indoor Invite and looked dead in the water, but this team just would not quit on one another.  The end result is our second MSL title in three years and a culmination of a lot of dreams and friendships.  We aren't the best team in the MSL if we run this meet another five to ten times, but we were best last night when it counted.  I am so proud to have coached these kids.

Performance List Updates - I put all PR times from the Varsity and F/S MSL into our leaderboards.  We now have seven guys under 10:00 for the first time in my tenure at PHS.

History Updates - It is always a good day when I get to put some names up on the All-Time Great lists for PHS track.  Alec Bollman's 1:52.5 in the 800 meters jumped him from third to second on that list.  Tim Johnson joined some very esteemed company on the sophomore 1600 list with his 4:24.8 clocking.  He slots in between Jon Cermak and Zach Somers, both of whom were All-State in the 1600 meter run during high school.  Tim's time is also the fastest I have ever coached from a sophomore, bettering Glenn Morris 4:27.6 sophomore PR.  Lastly, Anthony Gregorio's 9:41.9 in the 3200 meter run moved him to ninth on our sophomore list just ahead of former state champion and state record holder Mark Visk.  Outside of the distance group, Tyler Jones' 168' 11" throw in the discus moved him to #2 all-time, Nick LaRocca's 12' 9" vault put him on both the All-Time and junior level lists, and Sean Anderson's 42' 5" triple jump winner got him onto both the All-Time and the junior level list.  What a set of performances.

Picture Updates - I created a photo gallery of pics that Mr. J took.  Most are of the post-meet celebration, but those are my favorite kind of pictures. 

Varsity MSL Conference - Senior-Dominated Pirates Score 121 Points to Win

All of the coaches scored this meet ahead of time and found that the outlook was a bit foreboding.  Nalley had Prospect at 117 on their seeds, and Coach Sheehan and I had them at 115 and 111, respectively.  We seeded out around 84-85 points just behind Barrington.  It was clear that we could outperform our seeds in a number of areas, and Coach Nalley determined that an achievable goal for our squad was to score 110 points.  He felt that if we got to that mark then another team would simply have to outperform us.  At 110 points we would have to be beaten by someone rather than giving it away ourselves.

One of my favorite aspects of the MSL and IHSA Sectional meets is that most of the field events come before the running finals.  As a lifetime track nerd, I love to chart jump and throw marks during big competitions, and I rarely get to devote that much time to our field guys due to coinciding events.  I'll give the run-down of the meet as I watched it.

Long Jump - Prospect's Nick Batcha was the big favorite in this event, and he wasted no time in proclaiming his dominance, jumping 21' 10" on his first leap.  It took Myktka Cheshko and David DiCristofano a jump or two to get going, but by the end of preliminaries, both had jumped over 21' and sat in third and fourth.  Those marks held through the finals, and we ended up clearing eleven points.

Discus - After watching Q Bailey clear 5' 7" and 5' 9", I booked it out to the discus to catch the prelims.  We sat in second and eighth after the first round of throws, but Tyler Jones ripped one on his second effort to take the lead.  His 168' 11" throw was a new PR and ended up securing him the MSL title as Rolling Meadows' Alex Diaz never bettered the 163' 0" he threw on his first throw.  Chad Bobbit also had his best on his second throw with a 140' 0", and that ended up getting him eighth place.  Eleven more points.  Things were starting to feel good.

High Jump - I got back to the jumps area just in time to see Cheshko clear 6' 1" and 6' 3".  The latter mark ensured that he would place no worse than third, and he remained there as Wheeling's Weston Ross and Conant's super soph Bowers both cleared 6' 7".  Bailey's 5' 11" mark assured him seventh place alone so we scored eight points here.

Prelims - A couple of twists of fate in the 100 and 200 meter dash prelims helped us out.  Elk Grove only has a six lane track, which means that a spot in the top six is a huge advantage.  Runners in the consolation heat can place no higher than seventh.  In the 100 we squeezed through to the semis with third place finishes by both Halloran and Schalla, and both ended up in the middle lanes of the consolation final.  In the 200 prelims, Will Stein and Kyle Marrison were able to advance to the semis where mid-race injuries to Buffalo Grove's Ryan Darcy and Schaumburg's Dionte Hackler ensured both of our guys a spot in the top six.  That guaranteed us at least seven points in the 200.  Darcy only cramped by the way and ended up winning the 100 while Hackler's hamstring seemed a bit more severe, and he was scratched from the rest of the meet, including his specialty race, the 400 meter dash.

Pole Vault - Fate also twisted our way in this event.  Nick LaRocca had missed most of the outdoor season after tweaking a hamstring in one of our first outdoor meets, but he rounded into form quickly over the past two weeks and was able to clear 12' 9" on his first attempt at that height.  David Stanton also cleared 11' 9" to take seventh place.  The top seed, Meyer from Prospect, managed only a fifth place finish after tweaking a calf muscle during the event.  This is about the time that I started wondering how many more little things could go in our favor.  Our two vaulters scored eight points between them.

4 x 800 meter relay - We took a chance on some of our JV guys in this race because we wanted to keep Tim Johnson and Ryan McGough fresh for their open races later in the evening.  I replaced them with Ryan Wojdyla and Lucas Roehrborn and decided to run our fastest two guys first to get us in the race.  Both Hersey and Barrington loaded up their teams, and I expected the race to be a three-way battle between those two and always dominant Prospect.  The lead leg went out absurdly slow as no one wanted to go for it.  I looked at Coach Phillips's splits for Hersey later and saw that Matt Cwiok split 60.3 and 58.1 for his lead leg.  Hersey would go on to win in 7:55 in a huge performance for them. 

The best we were going to get in this race with our lineup was sixth place, and we battled Schaumburg's second line guys for much of the race.  Zach Gates ran another big PR split leading us off in 2:03.1 and putting us into fifth.  Tim Meincke blasted his first lap, but fought really hard to keep us in sixth with a PR of 2:03.8.  The Meincke-Wojdyla exchange may be the ugliest handoff I have ever seen where the stick was not dropped, but when Wo-Ho finally corralled it, he proceeded to run a 2:05.8 lifetime best as well.  The task fell to Lucas Roehrborn to keep us in sixth place, but he couldn't hold off Schaumburg's Mike Perry so we settled for two vital points and a seventh place finish.  Kudos to Lucas not only for running a solid 2:06 split, but also for running a 2:05.8 in a Wednesday solo time trial to earn his way in to the meet.

4 x 100 meter relay - We had been improving steadily in this race since our sprinters started returning from injury, and our recent work earned us a sixth place seed and a lane in the faster of the two sections.  We ran great.  Our 43.6 final time demolished our 44.5 season best, and I swear to God that we were third in this one.  Somehow we ended up fourth with five points, but I have no idea what the pickers were doing at the line in this race.  Not even close.

Triple Jump - The perfect game thoughts were starting to coalesce in my addled brain, and then I found out we were sitting first and third in the triple jump.  This event has been particularly weak in the MSL both this year and last year, and I had hoped that Sean Anderson and newly taught triple jumper Mykyta Cheshko could steal us 8-10 points.  In the end, Sean's 42' 5" leap from the prelims won him an MSL title as a junior.  Mykyta was pretty jumped out and nursing a sore calf by this point, but he threw down a 41' 9" jump to move into and keep third place.  We scored 16 points here.  Do you see the crazy trend?

3200 meter run - Now it was time for my group to really step up and do some damage.  With neither guy having run better than 9:48 this outdoor season, we seeded for one measly point, but I hoped that we could get much more.  Chano just has not been himself since getting sick halfway through outdoor season, but I hoped that he could stick in the front pack long enough to score some big points.  Sticking with the group ended up being fairly easy as Schaumburg's Pat Lesiewicz took the race out at a dawdling 72-73 second pace.  No one wanted to challenge a 9:14 3200 man from the gun so it continued that way through splits of 2:26 and 3:40 before Barrington's super soph Eric Peterson decided to make it a race.  The field strung out immediately as Hoffman's Kyle Gonzalez, Lesiewicz, and Prospect's Ken Halloran covered the move.

Our guys rode the pace easily, but nervously, as everyone jockeyed close together for clean position.  The whole pack knew that an abrupt pace change was coming, and our guys weren't exactly near the front when the move came just before the mile.  We came through in 4:50-4:51, but our guys were battling just to stay in the scoring at that point.  I laid into Chano at 1000 meters to go to get moving, and both he and Tony started to charge.  By 800 to go they were both in the top eight, and Tony took it from there to start running people down.  He pressed the pace off the front of the secondary pack and moved up into fifth.  He held that position until the last 200 meters when Fremd's Aaron Ferst used his superior speed to get by him.  Chano didn't have his best race ever, but he did kick hard enough to hang on for seventh place.  Tony's 9:41.9 was a huge lifetime best and put him into our All-Time top ten for sophomore 3200 meters.  It also puts him into the top ten for sophomores in the state this season.  Chano finished with an outdoor season best of 9:44.0.

100 meter dash - Terry Halloran and Steve Schalla were in the middle of the track here, and we were hoping that we could steal three points out of an event that is not one of our strengths.  Terry won the heat while Steve ended up third.  However, Hackler's earlier injury kept him out of the fast section of the final, and the MSL code states that we have to score eight place.  Our guys moved up to sixth and eighth respectively for a total of four points.

110 hurdles - No finalists here.  I think Eric Debellis' 16.5 in the prelims was a PR, but I may have that wrong.

800 meter run - This race was going to be a blockbuster from the start.  A number of teams had saved their 800 meter aces for a fresh run here.  Everyone but one guy in the 12 man final was seeded under 2:00, and the race was headlined by a match-up between Alec, who ran 1:53.5 just two weeks ago at the Palatine Relays, and Angelos Karkalis, who sported season PRs of 1:54.55 and 4:14 in the 800 and 1600 meter runs.  Alec has not lost yet this outdoor season in an open race, but Angelos manhandled he and the entire field at the IPTT meet with that stunning 4:14 PR.

I expected Alec to try and ride behind Angelos and use his superior speed to try and win at the end, but Bols was having none of that on this night.  He took it from the gun to a 55-56 split, lengthened out his lead down the backstretch, and then closed with a savage kick to drop his PR to 1:52.5.  Nothing he is doing this track season will amaze me anymore.  He is a man on fire, and I hope we keep him healthy and ready to go for the next two weeks.

Behind Alec, the rest of the race was hotly contested.  Ryan McGough had sustained a phantom rib cage injury driving his car last Sunday and had barely been able to run this week so I had no idea what to expect from him.  As usual, McGough sucked up whatever was wrong with him to run great.  He put his nose right on the back of the main group at the 400 meter mark before coming home in 1:57.7 for a new PR and a seventh place finish.  I can't believe that 1:57.7 (.2 from the state qualifying mark!) only gets seventh these days, but everyone else ran great.  Fremd's Spiros Angelakos placed third in a career PR of 1:55.7 while a crew of three other guys finished in the 1:56 range.  All told: twelve points.

4 x 200 meter relay - We really liked our first lane position in this race, and we wasted no time getting into the race behind a solid opener from Terry Halloran.  Will Stein and Willie Filian kept us in fourth before a great anchor leg from Alfonso Butera (all hail the Prom King!) nearly pulled us into third.  Wheeling's Weston Ross did us a favor here as he ran down Prospect from behind to push them back into second.  Five points.

Shot Put - Around this time, I asked Coach Sheehan to jog out to the shot put area to find out how Tyler and Chad were doing.  He came back with some not so great news.  Tyler couldn't replicate his big effort from the discus, and Chad had struggled just to make the finals after fouling his first two throws in the prelims before getting a 48' safe throw on his third.  In the finals, Chad still struggled until coming through with a big senior moment.  His final throw of 50' and change moved him into second place and snagged us eight points.  We double-scored every field event but this one to clear 61 points in the six field events.  Incredible.

400 meter dash - This one provided us with more twists of fate.  Firstly, Kyle Marrison ran a lifetime PR 51.6 in the third of four sections to place second in his heat behind a scorching 50.0 from Hoffman's Shawn Lascelles.  Pre-meet favorite Dionte Hackler and his 49.2 seed had to sit this one out due to the earlier hamstring strain, and we gained further points after a false start in the fast heat.  Kyle ended up getting fourth overall and earning five big points.

300 meter intermediate hurdles - We pulled Terry Halloran from this race to run the 4 x 200 so Kendall Cox was our only entrant.  He ran a nice lifetime best of 44.1 to win his heat.

1600 meter run - There were a couple of big moments in this race. First, Alec has not lost this outdoor season, but he had to face a fresh Photis Karkalis from Rolling Meadows in order to score our points and keep his streak alive.  Photis had run 4:20 low earlier in the season so that was no easy task.  Other fresh guys included Prospect's Greg Netols and Hersey's Steve Tubergen.  The second big moment belonged to Tim Johnson.  Everyone in our group had PR'd like crazy, and recent workouts suggested that Tim was sitting on a big race.  We created a "gentlemanly wager" - a small betting pool of food tickets and dollar bills - using Price is Right rules to guess what Timmy J would run.  You had to guess his time and be the closest without going over.  Guesses ranged from 4:22 to 4:26.

The early pace was quick, but not shocking.  Alec tried to ride along on the rail as best he could through splits of 63 and 2:07-2:08.  Karkalis took the field by storm in the third lap and gapped everyone by 7-10 meters at the 600 to go mark.  The field was stringing out, but it was obvious that everyone was going to finish with great times.  Karkalis hit 1200 in 3:13-3:14, and I thought for a minute that he might have the gap he needed.  Then, from the far end of the track I hear the announcer going crazy, "Here comes Bollman!"  By 300 meters to go, he had him and it was all over.  Alec blasted to the win in 4:17.1 to finish his great double: 1:52.5 and 4:17.1 in an hour's time.  Behind Alec, Timmy J was just off the back of a group of guys and charging hard.  He put on a furious kick to pass Netols in the last 10 meters and finish in sixth place with a huge PR of 4:24.8.  Wojdyla won the pool by the way.  He had 4:24.7.  All told, we ended up with 13 points and put the meet away.

200 meter dash - This race would end up being the icing on the cake, but we did not know it at the time.  Coach Nalley went up to the press box to see the score, and our two guys proceeded to place fourth and sixth for eight more points.  Marrison's and Stein's races ensured that the 4 x 400 meter relay would be a mere formality.

1600 meter relay - I really did not want Alec to have to run in this one, and the score finally showed that he could sit down and rest.  We ended up not scoring in the final race of the night, but everyone was too busy celebrating on the infield to care.

In the end we scored in 15 of the 18 events (everything but the two hurdles and the 4 x 400).  More important, we double scored guys in 10 of the 14 individual events, and everyone knows that is the way to win a conference title.  For the first time in my nine years as distance coach, we double-scored the 3200-800-1600 while still scoring a 3200 relay.  Our young guys came through like stars with Meincke (2:03.8), Gregorio (9:41.9), and Johnson (4:24.8) setting huge PRs in their single efforts.  The future looks bright as well: Tony is the #2 returnee in the 3200 while Johnson is the same in the 1600. 

F/S MSL Conference - Late Scoring Adjustments Net a Third Place Finish

After the exhaustive recap above, I'll just give the distance results for this one.  Our young guys set the table for the varsity meet the next night by blasting to a ton of PR performances.  The weather was warm, but windy.  Thunderstorms had been in the forecast all day long, but things worked out as the sunshine came through and the winds subsided enough for some fast distance action to occur.

4 x 800 meter relay - I have had this pipe dream all year long that we could break the freshman school record in this event.  It was set in 1972 at the Palatine Relays in a scorching time of 8:32.5.  That relay included Chuck Bell and Clark Rasmussen, both of whom broke 2:00 as frosh.  Bell in fact ran 1:55.1 that year.  We had no such studs to power our relay, but I hoped that we could run balanced 2:08 splits across the board.

Andrew Clingerman led us off.  Prospect got out to a big lead on us early in the leg, and Andrew couldn't quite get us to their shoulder by the end of his leg.  His 2:10 split put us into a close third.  Jordan Jarrett took the stick next and ran a really smart race.  He went out and tried to gradually catch the lead.  He struggled a bit in the last 100 meters, but his huge 2:08 PR annihilated the big gap that he faced at the start of his leg.  Joe Mars came next, and his 2:10 leg put us right on the lead at the last exchange.  Zach Stella ran much of the last leg in a three-way battle for the win.  Heisler from Prospect broke the race really hard at 300 to go, and Zach worked hard but couldn't make up the gap.  We settled for second place in 8:39, which is a great effort from a quartet of freshman.  Our future in this event is off the charts.  These guys possess both speed and competitive zeal. 

3200 meter run - Marcus Garcia and Peter Tomkiewicz have been on a quest to break 10:00 this track season, and I feared that the wind would do in their goals before the race even started.  Miraculously, the wind subsided, and we got down to some great racing.  Schaumburg's super frosh Evan Prizy was the favorite here, and it is clear that he possesses potent speed.  We tried to lose him throughout the middle of the race, but Evan rode on Marcus' tail until 300 to go and ran away to a 9:54 win.  Marcus was at 7:30 with two laps to go and 8:47 with one to go, but he closed with a flurry to run 9:58 for second place.  Peter was locked into a great race behind the two leaders, and he just kept grinding on this pack of guys until only one remained at a lap to go.  Conant's Alex Miller used his speed to get by Peter in the last 100, but Peter's 10:05 clocking for fourth place was a huge PR and confidence booster.  We entered the season with the goal of getting five sophomores under 10:00.  Both Meincke and Tomkiewicz will run the 3200 meters at Naperville on Monday to take one last shot at the mark.

800 meter run - We ran Zach Stella in both the 4 x 800 and the open to test his mettle a little bit, and we added Brian Smith to see if he could drop his PR and score some points.  We ran great in this race.  Brian and Zach both smartly laid off the early pace, and Smith came firing in the second lap after a 64 second opener.  He blasted the stretch from 400-600 meters to move into third place.  His big move cost him a bit coming home, but I loved his aggression.  Both our freshmen hung tough to finish fifth and sixth overall in times of 2:11 and 2:12.  Smith's 2:12 run was a 3 second PR.

400 meter run - Rob Hank has a knack for coming up big in this race, and I hoped that he could challenge for the win from the middle of the track.  He paced it in third through the 200 mark before charging into the lead at 100 meters to go.  He tied up a bit, but his 54.1 was good for third place and another big PR.  In the slower heat, Jordan Jarrett doubled back from the 4 x 800 to win and run 55.1!  He placed fifth.  I can't believe the speed gifts that our freshmen possess, and I am salivating at our prospects for future 4 x 400 and 4 x 800 glories.  We are deep and versatile.

1600 meter run - I had Marcus double back from the 3200 meters and added Christian Zambrano to see if he could break 4:50.  The race absolutely crawled through 600 meters before someone lit it up and got things moving.  Zambrano was taken by surprise and got dropped immediately.  He's been struggling with the achy knees of a growing freshmen for some time now, and it was clear that it was time for him to grab a well-needed rest.  He ended up out of the points.  Marcus completed a nice double by running 4:46 for fifth place.

Overall, we ended up finishing third overall after some late scoring adjustments moved us to 80 points.  We have some nice pieces to future track teams in here, but we will have to find some more sprinters in order to be future title contenders in the varsity MSL.

May 9, 2010 - Boys Place Second at 78th Annual Palatine Relays, Girls Win

Well, the track season has officially gotten away from me.  I give you here today six meets worth of commentary.  Buying a house, helping 65 kids write research papers, and preparing my charges for their AP English Language test has severely cut in to my web updating habits.  For those loyal and patient alums and fans, here is everything you need to know about the past two weeks of our season.

We have a number of great trends going within both our track team and our distance group.  We came together for powerful group performances at the MSL West Division meet and the 78th Palatine Relays.  Our field event guys have just been outstanding with a number of performances that place high up our All-Time event leaderboards.  Tyler Jones has thrown 167' in the discus to move to #3 All-Time, Chad Bobbit has thrown over 52' to move into the #8 All-Time spot in the shot put, and Mykyta Cheshko has jumped 21' 9" and 6'4" to establish himself as #11 long jump man and the #7 high jump man.  Lastly, sophomore Prentice Brooks has really started to figure out the shot put.  He launched a 47' 1" throw to put his name as #8 in the sophomore shot put.

In the distance group, Alec Bollman has started to show that he might go down as one of our best track distance guys in school history.  At the Palatine Relays, Alec ran 1:53.5 to move to #3 All-Time on the 800 meter list.  Smoody's 1:50.71 school record is still way out of range, but Alec ran within .3 of a second of Dave Kennedy's old school record of 1:53.2 from 1977.  He was also quick to mention that he had bettered Coach Miller's even older school record of 1:54.1.  Then, this past Friday night Alec stepped up to win the 3200 meters at the Hinsdale Central McCarthy Invite in a big new PR of 9:23.8.  That clocking is good enough to tie Gordon Dreyfus' #10 All-Time clocking from 1965.  Dreyfus went on to win the state title in the 1600 that year so maybe it's a good omen.

Other trends are also starting to look good.  I renewed our focus on the 3200 meter run this season after a lackluster showing in that event last season, and we have responded well.  Reuben Frey ran a spectacular 9:46.4 on Saturday to demolish his PR of 10:07 set earlier in the outdoor season.  Other significant PRs have come from Lucas Roehrborn (10:17) and a ton of our freshmen.  We had six freshmen run between 10:30 and 10:50 on Friday night to give us our deepest class of frosh athletes since I started here in 2002.

Performance List Update - I updated the Leaderboards for all events.

History Update - I usually wait until the end of the season to update the History pages, but Alec's great race had me running to check where his 800 time fit in school history.  He established a new #3 time just .3 behind Dave Kennedy's old school record of 1:53.2.  Not bad for a guy we have always seen as a 1600 man first and an 800 man second.  I updated our list to include his new PR.  I chided Alec on Thursday for being tied for 22nd best and told him this was a great time to move way up the list.  Message received.

78th Annual Palatine Relays - Bollman's 1:53.5 Highlights Solid Day of Action

F/S 1600 medley - We pulled Tim Meincke from his leadoff spot on the DMR to anchor this medley relay and our gamble didn't really pay off.  Tim ran a near PR of 2:06 and change, but wasn't able to come from behind on a couple of teams who were close.  We ended up settling for fifth or sixth place.

800 meter run - I have never been able to get Alec to really put himself out aggressively in this race.  He has run 1:56 and 1:57 numerous times over the past two years, but almost all of them have been negative split affairs that lacked an aggressive start.  Aggressive starts don't always guarantee fast times, obviously, but I have always wanted to see if he can handle a faster first 400 meters.  Survey says: he can.  The field was a solid one, and the first 400 meters was a quick 54.2 after an opening 26-27.  You could tell that Alec was on a mission from there as he took the lead just before the 500 meter mark and scorched the backstretch to a 1:22.8 600 meter clocking.  His 30.7 final 200 meters shows that our combination of speed training and aerobic work is clearly working.  His 1:53.5 sets him up as #2 in the state to Edwardsville's Dan Mazar, who clocked 1:52.8 the week previous.  It suffices to say that I could have gone home happy after this race :-)  I love my milers with big speed, and Alec is obviously sitting on a great 1600 meter time in his near future.

3200 meter run - Chano Bernardo has been struggling a bit lately with illness and fatigue issues.  Those of you who know him know that his daily schedule is virtually inhuman (he's up from 2:30 am to 9:00 pm at night most days), and Chano just didn't look like he had his best on this day.  His 9:48 time was good for only fourth or fifth place.  Hopefully we can tweak some things with his training and resting habits to get him feeling better in the coming weeks.

Distance medley relay - We took a risk in this relay by pulling Tim Meincke out of the 1200 meter leg and putting him on our medley.  Anthony Gregorio gave a game effort on the leadoff, but his split suffered after he went out in his 800 meter PR.  He ended up running 3:20, but we were well behind by that point.  Willie Filian ran a solid 52 split to keep us in it, and Ryan McGough was solid again with a 2:02 800 meter leg.  Tim Johnson got the stick in fifth or sixth and was able to move us up a spot or two with a 4:30.3 split.  He and Eric Peterson from Barrington locked horns in a great battle down the last stretch, but Timmy J just got leaned at the wire for third place. 

4 x 800 meter relay - We doubled back Meincke, Johnson, and McGough with Zach Gates running fresh, but our results ended up being less than stellar.  I think McGough's inspired 2:02 split ended up getting us fourth or fifth after the first three legs only came through in 2:07-2:08 splits.

1600 meter run - We rode Alec pretty hard in this meet by putting him in three events, and I was interested to see how he would handle his marquee race after running incredibly in an event that isn't his specialty.  Chris Cogswell from Barrington was fresh here, and he led through the first 800 meters before Alec took control and cruised to a 4:21.4 win.  He once again showed that he can run 60 seconds for the final circuit whenever he needs to.  After about 20 minutes of rest, he was also able to come back and anchor our 4 x 400 with a 50.5 PR split.   

Other - Outside of Alec, our distance guys didn't quite pull their weight in this one, and we had to rely on some other event groups to score big points.  Both Mykyta Cheshko and David DiCristofano went over 21' to get us second in the long jump, we had two guys jump over 41' to give us third or fourth in the triple jump, and our shot and discus guys came through with first place and second place performances in their events.  Solid results in the pole vault and high jump helped drive us to a second place team performances.

MSL West Division Championship - Total Team Effort Secures 3rd Title in 4 Years

We hadn't quite put together a full team effort yet this season so it was refreshing to see all of our guys pull this one out.  We preached about bringing emotion and team togetherness to this one, and I was really proud to see guy after guy set PRs and score big points.  Our field event guys were phenomenal (winning five of the six events), and Alec Bollman and Ryan McGough stepped up huge to score big points from our group.

4 x 800 meter relay - We denuded this relay of its top two performers to try and score bigger in the open races, and the result was a fifth place showing.  We actually ran a solid race through three legs to be a close fourth place, but Drew Shaler was just overmatched against the other big anchor legs.  I want to commend Drew though.  He has worked hard for years and just blasted the first lap of his race to get us up to third place for a brief moment.  He really made a couple of the other anchor legs go hard, and they ended up being non-factors for the rest of the meet.  It was a small piece of racing, but I admired Drew's race a great deal.

3200 meter run - We wanted to score big points in this one, but our strategy backfired and we only ended up scoring fifth (Chano) and sixth (Anthony).  The wind was howling at Conant, and I asked Chano to try and take the race out on 4:40 pace from the gun.  He did just that and strung out the entire field.  In the end, though, three other guys just drafted off him, hung on through five laps, and then drew away to score all of the points.  Gregorio did not go out on the early pace, and he managed to come from behind and sweep up some guys from the front crew.  I think they ran 9:51 and 9:55. 

800 meter run - We took a risk early in the meet by taking Ryan McGough and Alec Bollman out of our relay, and both had to score big in order for us to maximize our points.  Unlike the 3200 run, our strategy worked as we placed first and third for 16 big points.  Alec blasted the last 300 meters to win in 1:56.6, and Ryan McGough broke 2:00 for the first time in running 1:59.5.  Congrats to Ryan on his big PR!

1600 meter run - Alec doubled back in this race only 30-40 minutes after his 800 meter run victory, and we knew that this one would be a challenge.  Barrington's Chris Cogswell, a state qualifier last year in this event, was fresh, and Schaumburg's Pat Lesiewicz had a lot more rest after anchoring his 3200 relay earlier in the evening.  Lesiewicz set the early pace through the 400 in 64 before the pace lagged to splits of 2:10 and 3:19.  Alec took off at about the 450 meter to go mark and proceeded to drop the field.  He clocked the final circuit in just over 60 seconds for a sweet 4:19.9 time and a dominating three second win.  The other story here was the gutty effort of sophomore Tim Johnson.  We kept Timmy J fresh for this race in hopes of another big point grab.  He ended up fifth after kicking past two guys in the last 200 meters and set a new lifetime PR of 4:29.7.  Not bad for a sophomore.

Hinsdale Central McCarthy Invite - Bollman Reaches Top 10 in 3200 Run

Coach Nalley surprised all of us by getting the team into this meet on late notice.  Our juniors and seniors had Prom on Saturday night so most were only going to play limited roles at the Lisle Invite.  We ended up being able to take 14 guys in two vans to run at a loaded meet that included Oak Park-River Forest, Downers North and South, Hinsdale Central and South, and Bloom Township among others.

3200 meter run - I hoped that this would be a really deep and hot race, but almost all of the best 3200 meter runners elected to run the 1600 only in this meet.  I worried that Alec would be left alone to pace himself, but he ended up getting a determined race from Hinsdale Central's junior star Billy Fayette.  The two burned it through the 800 in 2:16.7 before settling in to splits of 3:29.9 (73.3), 4:42.0 (72.2), 5:56.0 (74.0), 7:09.2 (73.2).  Bollman was clearly still feeling good and set out on his own at about 1000 meters to go.  He closed in 70.9 and 63.6 for a slight negative split of 4:41.3.  More proof that patient even racing makes sense for both the 3200 and 5K distances.  Tim Johnson learned a couple of lessons.  He went out too quickly in 4:46.1 before backsliding to a 5:07 second mile and a slight PR of 9:53.7.  I can handle a guy putting himself in a race, but Timmy J still needs to learn how to react to moves and use smart race tactics to manage his race.  Good lessons learned here.

800 meter run - Zach Gates has been going out in 58-59 seconds in this race even though his 400 meter PR is only 56.5 or so.  I advised him to relax the first 200 meters and pace himself evenly.  He executed his race plan to perfection and ended up a with a two second PR of 2:04.4.  More proof that patience matters and that smart racing can get us to our goals much more easily than brute force.

1600 meter run - The wind had really picked up before the 3200 meter run and kept getting worse as the night wore on.  It was evident in this stacked 1600 meter race as only Malachy Schrobilgem from OPRF even dared to run a fast time.  He was out ahead of the group the entire time, but the rest ran as a cloistered pack through relatively pedestrian splits of 66-67 and 2:14-2:15.  The race moved evenly from there with the main pack coming through the 1200 mark at 3:23-3:24.  The race set up perfectly for Chano and Meincke, but neither could find the fire in the last 400 meters to run a huge PR.  They settled for incremental improvements of 4:32.4 and 4:35.5.  Not bad, but the race was set up perfectly if either one had been able to close with any force.

Carley Nalley Lisle Invitational - Reuben Frey Smashes his 3200 PR

4 x 800 meter relay - I used this race as an opportunity for four guys to try and improve their times enough to get in to the MSL varsity meet.  No one really was able to drop much time.  Temperatures were frigid with wind chills in the mid-40s at the start.  Our splits were Garcia (2:10.9), Wojdyla (2:09.0), Shaler (2:11.1), and Cox (2:15.6).

3200 meter run - I have had a hard time serving all of the good runners in our varsity group this season, and Reuben Frey and Lucas Roehrborn were basically given this one opportunity to run great times.  Reuben had run 10:07 a long time ago, and I knew that he was ready to pop a big one.  Did he ever.  He ran perfectly even splits of 4:53.1 and 4:53.2 to record a massive new PR of 9:46.4.  This race had me smiling all day long.  Firstly, I enjoyed it because Reuben is one of my all-time favorite competitors.  He races really tough in long races, and this huge new PR validated both his toughness and the emphasis on relaxed aerobic racing.  We are learning to race smarter as a program, and I can't think of any better example than this one.  Lucas was also smart in this one.  He came through in 5:02 before hanging on to a 5:15 second split for a 20 second PR of 10:17.  His time gives us 10 cross country returnees at 10:23 or better.  Hopefully, our sophomores come through the next couple weeks and really drop their 3200 times and give us 4-6 guys under 10:00 for next year's team.  A.J. Laskowske would almost certainly have broken the mark had he not gotten injured so I am really liking how our returnee group is trending.

800 meter run - Chano and Tony got a chance to drop their 800 meter PRs after running quite a few 1600 and 3200 meter races lately.  They both ran solid, but not great in setting season bests of 2:07.4 and 2:10.4. 

1600 meter run - Both Ryan McGough and Zach Gates are ready for huge time drops in this event, but both guys missed being in the fast heat and had to make the race themselves out of the slower section.  They dawdled in the wind through an opening 800 split of 2:22.  Ryan held off a spirited charge from one of his friends from Jacobs to win his heat and finish in a new PR of 4:37.  Gates was just off his best as his placed third in 4:42.  Too bad they couldn't have been dragged along in a faster section on a windy and cold day.

Hersey F/S Invitational - Distance Crew Sets a Ton of PRs

4 x 800 meter relay - Our freshmen have been incredible all year long in this event and the open 800, and we got a slew of solid performances from them again in this race.  It was really windy so I had Tim Johnson lead-off and try to get us away from the group.  Rockton Hononegah's Dragan Simic ran away from the field with a fine 2:02, but we came through the exchange in a clear second place behind Tim's 2:06 split.  From there we tried in vain to catch Rockton behind solid runs from freshmen Andrew Clingerman (2:12), Jordan Jarrett (2:12), and Zach Stella (2:11). 

3200 meter run - Marcus Garcia and Tim Meincke were trying to break 10:00 in this race, but the stiff wind ensured that no PRs would be smashed on this day.  We tried to keep it moving through at 75 second pace by trading leads.  This tactic effectively strung out the field and reduced it to four guys: our two, Schaumburg's Pat Swiech and Hersey's freshman star Robert Somary.  Swiech ran smart before using his speed to run away to the win in the last 300 meters.  Garcia ran 10:06 to nearly equal his PR while Meincke faded badly in the last 800 meters to run 10:24 and get nipped at the line.  They finished second and fourth to score some big team points.

800 meter run - I had Tim Johnson double back from the relay as part of a 4 x 800, 800, 4 x 400 workout day, and he responded with one of his best efforts of the season.  Hononegah's Simic ran away with the win just as in the 4 x 800, but Tim made a spirited charge to get into second place at the 600 and then to hold off Hersey's Chris Colletto in the final stretch.  His 2:05.8 was a new PR and demonstrated how much toughness Timmy J can have when he is competing at his best.

400 meter run - The theme for our freshman class is speed, and Rob Hank and Jordan Jarrett flashed some in this race.  Rob stormed from behind to win his heat in a new PR of 55.1 while Jordan finished second in his race with a huge new best of 56.3.  They placed third and seventh overall.

1600 meter run - Wind again played a factor in this race even though it had lessened from the start of the night.  The field was stacked with most of the best F/S runners in the area, but no one wanted to be the sacrificial pacer so it went out fairly slow through splits of 70-2:22.  Everyone knew that it was coming back in a big negative split, and I was proud of Anthony Gregorio for putting his nose right in there.  He was all out from about 500 meters to go and simply lacked the speed to kick with the two Schaumburg guys and Prospect's Mike Thill.  Tony's 4:37 was a new 4 second PR.  Peter Tomkiewicz also set a two second PR of 4:46.9 in a race that saw him persevere through a brutal, bloody spike mark in the first 20 meters of the race.  Hooray for war wounds and new PRs!  I love Peter's toughness as a racer, and he once again showed why he will be a big factor for us in the next two CC seasons.

Prospect/St. Viator JV Meet - Frosh 3200 Run Times Headline a Great Night

For most guys, this is the final official meet of the year even though we run some season-ending time trials the week of the MSL meet.  I dubbed it long ago as the "JV State Meet," but the meet has become much more known for the annual McCathlon competition.  Started by Mike McCain in his senior year, the McCathlon is simple: in a meet with no relays, a man simply runs every track event excluding the hurdles.  A typical McCathlon thus consists of the 3200 meter run followed in short order by the 100 meter dash, the 800 meter run, the 400 meter dash, the 1600 meter run, the 200 meter dash, and an obligatory 4 x 400 meter relay.  This year, John Pasowicz, Tirth Patel, and Alvaro Colin successfully completed the challenge.  Official times can come later.  I'm not sure if anyone has kept track of the best performance overall since McCain's first one, but Tirth ran pretty well. 

3200 meter run - I set this race up as a freshman 3200 meter bonanza, and our young guys paid off in a big way.  I have fretted for much of the season about the lack of aerobic development in this class, knowing that we would have to get over that hurdle this summer.  Our times had started to come down a bit over the last three weeks, and our speed numbers were certainly good.  This race ended up being the one I was looking for.  I had everyone run it, and Coach Sheehan told me that it came down to Jordan Jarrett, Brian Smith, and Zach Stella sprinting for the win.  Jordan used his speed to hit the tape first in 10:31.1 and was followed closely by Stella (10:31.7) and Smith (10:32.1).  Another group of Christian Zambrano (10:47), Adam Vanderweil (10:48), and Mundee Bawa (10:49) closed soon after.  Other new freshman PRs included Matt Szablowksi (11:01), Emanuel Rosales (11:48), and Sebastian Ramirez (11:48).  Kendall Cox also ran 10:55 in his first attempt at the distance, and Chris Ruston set a slight new PR of 12:24.