On Friday night, both our Varsity and Frosh-Soph teams competed in the Oswego Invitational.  This meet serves as our last chance to experiment with our lineup before the Indoor Upstate Eight Conference Championship Meet.

Frosh-Soph

The Frosh-Soph team took second place at this invitational by only one point to Naperville Central.  This is quite an accomplishment considering that we kept some athletes out of this meet and moved some up to Varsity.

The Frosh-Soph 3200 m was held during the preliminary events and saw Matt Horsley (Fr.) take command of the race and pull away from the field for the win.

The finals began with the first place 4 x 800 m relay team of John Stavropoulos (Fr.), Daniel Weiss (Fr.), Omar Mehio (So.) and Alex Pierce (So.).  In the 55 m High Hurdles, Aidan Collins (Fr.) was competing in this event for the first time and took second.  The 55 m dash runner up was Tobe Ijose (So.), who ran a season best time of 6.9 without having spikes for this meet.  The pair of Max Rainer (Fr.) and Michael Widmann (Fr.) both set personal bests in the 800 m by about four seconds each.  The 400 m saw an aggressive Kyle Bender (Fr.) take second.  In the 1600 m, Nathan Mollway (Fr.) took second in the event while running 4:57.3 which is a personal best by 12 seconds.  Willie Anderson (So.) secured the win in the 200 m with a time of 25.4.  In the final running event of the finals, Tobe Ijose (So.), Mac Kiley (So.), Mac Crockett (So.), and Patrick Pater (Fr.) took first place in the 4 x 400 m relay.

The Frosh-Soph field events continue to show great development.  Matt Hughes (So.) took first place in the High Jump with a leap of 5’ 10”.  Adam Peterson (So.) took first place in the Long Jump and second place in the Pole Vault.  Brandon Beck (Fr.) took second place in the Long Jump.  We were able to score the maximum number of points in the Long Jump due to the top two places going to Neuqua Valley.  Finally, Willie Anderson (So.) continues to set personal bests in the Triple Jump and took second place in that event with jump of 39’ 4.5”, which is a personal best by 7 inches.

Varsity

Our Varsity team took second place as well, this time only being three points behind Naperville Central.  Again we were not at full strength as a team, and were still almost able to win this meet.

The finals of the meet started off with our 4 x 800 m relay team of Alekh Meka (Jr.), Robbie Hohlman (Jr.), Steven Krauklis (Sr.) and John Schuster (Sr.) taking second.  In the 55 m High Hurdles, Ernie Edwards (Jr.) won the event by less than tenth of a second with a nice lean.  The 800 m race went out very slow until the last lap when Kevin Skrip (Sr.) took the lead and eventually the win with a monster kick, finishing with a time of 2:05.0.  In the 200 m dash, James Sampson (So.) ran away from the field early to finish with a time of 24.0 and the win.  The 4 x 400 m relay featured a something that has not happened in quite some time with a Freshman, Ty Moss leading off the relay team.  Ty also took fourth place in the Varsity 400 m dash.  The relay team of Ty Moss (Fr.), Zach Coffel (Jr.), Andy Martinez (Sr.), and Kevin Skrip (Sr.) won the event.

Neuqua Valley scored in all of the field events and double scored in four of the five events.  In the High Jump, Tim Heinz (So.) won the event with a jump of 6’ 0”.  Trent Wracker (Jr.) took third in the High Jump and second in the Long Jump with personal bests in each event.  Andrew Peterson (Sr.) and Josh Prescher (Jr.) both tied for third in the pole vault with jumps of 12’ 6”.  In the Triple Jump, Brad Mikulecky (Jr.) returns to our team now that basketball season is over to jump a team best 40’ 3”.  Austin Parks (So.) took third in the triple jump with season best jump of 39’ 9.25”.  Finally, our throwers Carlos Varela (Jr.) and Zach McKibbin (Sr.) took third and fourth respectively, both throwing personal bests.

Our team now heads to the Indoor Upstate Eight Conference Championship Meets which will be held on Friday, March 16^th for the Varsity and Monday, March 19^th, for the Frosh-Soph.

On Monday night, we sent three relays to North Central College to compete in the Mustang Relays. Meet Results. Over the past couple of years, since it has been freed from the more cramped quarters of the fieldhouse at Lewis University, this event has really grown in a fierce competition with tremendous depth. It was amazing to watch the relay times drop as heat after heat posted faster times. Congratulations also to our girls’ team, who ran smart races and competed well for our school.

4x800m Relay

We started off the night with an 8th place finish in the 4x800m relay. After Lane Tech got tripped up on the opening leg, the race was called back and re-started. Senior Andy Martinez led off with a 2:05 effort, followed by Brendan O’Connor and Drew smith, who split 2:03 and 2:04, respectively. Anchor Mark Derrick closed in 2:00, and the effort was a season-best for our team.

4x200m Relay

As we witnessed some great 4×200 races, we had to wait our turn until the last heat. Since we hadn’t really put this relay together this season, we had to estimate our time. Until now, we’ve done visual exchanges and played it safe: this race is often trecherous when athletes are running an oval at full speed and sharing lanes. Eric Metoyer was out of the blocks quickly, and he handed the baton to Yousef Yunis. We were forced to hit the brakes and tuck in behind another team on the curve, but pulled even at the exchange. The same happened again with junior Dennis Thurow, but coming into the final straight he pulled ahead and handed the baton to Jacob Bender. From that point, we pulled away and won our heat in 1:30.82 (IL #2, US#40). Though our effort was a new school record by almost two seconds, we finished just behind Downers Grove North, who had a school record of their own in the heat before ours - by about four seconds! Congratulations to those guys for their clean exchanges and superb effort!

4x400m Relay

The 4×400 was just as intense, and our quartet of Julius Garcia, Kevin Skrip, Roland Dewgard, and Jake Bender came in a close second behind a very fast Thornwood team in 3:25.56 (IL #2, US#49). This race did not disappoint, as our first three kept us within striking distance of race leaders Minooka and Thornwood. Because we got out a little further back at the start, we were caught exchanging the baton in a good amount of traffic, which hurt us a little in terms of our time. Nevertheless, we continue to improve as Julius came off of injury and ran his first 400 since last year’s sectional, where he finished 5th overall. Kevin had a breakthrough race, and Roland continued to test his limits at this distance. Lastly, Jake continues to break new ground as his split drops each week. He ran a remarkable 48.8 – which looks more like an outdoor time. I can’t wait to see how we will improve when the weather warms up and we get to practice on a track.

Overall, this meet was a great opportunity to measure where we are at in our training. We look very sharp at this point in the season, but know there is a long road ahead of us to get to Charleston. Perhaps the best observation we made as coaches was the amount of guys who showed up to support their teammates last night. We are working together as a team to accomplish some great goals, which will pay off in the future. Next up: Oswego Invitational on Friday night.