The Red Ribbon Invitational at Waubonsie Valley has a long and storied history of great performances and bad weather. As a team, we have witnessed heavy rains, cold temperatures, high winds, a microburst that lifted the pole vault pit and dropped it into the middle of the field and even this year, when straw rained down from the heavens for no particular reason. However, it is also a time when our team seems to weather the storms well and actually take a step forward. This year was no different. With a final score of 135, our Varsity team captured its second invitational win in as many meets. For the first time this season, we beat Homewood-Floosmoor, who took second place. Please keep in mind that our regular season record does not matter and we need to be ready for every team in the post season when everything really matters. We know that Homewood-Flossmoor will be back to full strength soon and we look forward to competing against them at the State Meet. 

The meet began as usual with the field events and in the throws, Matt Appel (So) took 2nd place in the discus with a throw of 157’ 4”. Matt has now thrown past the State Qualifying mark in both the Shot Put and the Discus. On the Frosh-Soph level,  Elijah Darden (Fr.) and Sam Jourdan (So.) took 4th and 5th place respectively with throws of 113’ 0” and 103’ 9’. The pair would also take 7th and 9th place in the Shot Put with throws of 35’ 6” and 34’ 4”.

In the vertical jumping events, Jailen Poole (Fr.) took 5th place in the High Jump with a jump of 5’ 2” at the Frosh-Soph level and Matt Dziekan (Sr.) took 3rd place in the Pole Vault at the Varsity level with a jump of 12’ 8”. In the Long Jump, Ife Oketona (Sr.) and Norman Dong (Sr.) double scored with jumps of 22’ 2.5” and 2nd place for Ife and 20’ 9” and 4th place for Norman. Ife held the meet record for about 10 minutes before Jalen Hunter from Homewood-Flossmoor jumped 1.25 inches further. Abood Armouti (So.) took 5th place in the Frosh-Soph Triple Jump with a leap of 37’ 9”, which is an outdoor personal best. At the Varsity level, Mac Mitchell (Sr.) set another personal best with a jump of 44’ 5”, taking 4th place.

Moving to the track with our first two relays, the Frosh-Soph relay of Dylan Bushelle (So.), Brian Jett (Fr.), William Fu (Fr.???) and Brandon Do (Fr.) took 5th place with a time of 9:15.43. Brandon ran a solid anchor leg of 2:14.??? In high wind. At the Varsity level, the team of Danny Winek (Sr.), Zach Kinne (Jr.), Alex Johnson (Sr.) and Tyler Bombacino (Sr.) took the invitational title with a time of 8:08.53. In the 4 x 100 m, the Varsity team of Donovan Turner (Jr.), Kai Lason (Sr.), Patrick Hoffman (So.) and Myles Gascon (Sr.) took 2nd place with a time of 42.92. This team keeps improving its exchanges every meet and they were able to run nearly the same time as last week despite an even stronger wind.

In the 3200 m, Nicolas Dovalovsky (Fr.) had an incredible debut in this event, breaking the 10 minute barrier in his first ever attempt with an invitational win in a time of 9:55.32. Vasant Fong (Fr.) would just miss the same barrier with a still impressive time of 10:00.99 and 5th place. The Varsity 3200 m saw a big surge from Chris Keeley (Jr.) in the last half of the race to take 2nd place with a personal best time of 9:41.78 and 2nd place. DJ Sauer would take 7th in 9:58.72 as he crossed the 10 minute barrier.  

The short sprints unfortunately were run into the wind, but our athletes fought for place, knowing that the times would be slow. In the Varsity 110 m High Hurldes, Donovan Turner (Jr.) took 2nd with a time of 15.13 and unfortunately hit some hurdles late in the race. In the Varsity 100 m Dash, Myles Gascon (Sr.) captured the win in a time of 11.22. The Varsity 4 x 200 m relay team of Ife Oketona (Sr.), Kai Larson (Sr.), Patrick Hoffman (So.) and Myles Gascon (Sr.) posted a season best time of 1:30.21 and took 2nd place. In the final leg of the race, Myles kept pace with last year’s State Champion in the 100 m and 200 m, Declan Rustay from Hoffman Estates. Donovan came back later in the meet to win the Varsity 300 m Intermediate Hurdles in a time of 39.16. Mitch Donahue (Sr.) would complete the double score in this event with a personal best time of 41.17 and 4th place. Enoch Kim (Fr.) took 5th place at the Frosh-Soph level with a personal best time of 47. 61. Myles Gascon completed yet another quadruple event by taking 2nd place in the 200 m with a personal best open time of 22.61. Patrick Hoffman ran 23.27 to take 5th place. Patrick has been displaying incredible sprint speed for a Sophomore!

In the later distance events, David Tassone (So.) took 3rd place in the Frosh-Soph 800 m with a time of 2:11.05, which is an open 800 m personal best. Dakota Getty (Sr.) held off a charge from Wheaton-Warrenville South’s Sean Maison in the last 300 m to win the Varsity 800 m in a time of 1:59.76. We saw more personal bests in the Varsity 1600 m, where Michael Madiol (Jr.) took 5th in a time of 4:32.44 and Spencer Teske (Jr.) took 6th in a time of 4:32.57. For Spencer, this is a 10 second personal best!

In the last event of the day, our Varsity 4 x 400 m relay team of Michael Dy (Sr.), Kel Foley (Jr.), Donovan Turner (Jr.) and Kai Larson (Sr.), dropped nearly 3 seconds from their previous best to take 3rd overall. Kai ran his fastest split of the season, clocking 49.7 for 400 m. This event also completed another quadruple event day for Donovan.

The Red Ribbon Invitational may be in the books and with it, another step forward for the team. We only have two meets left before the championship part of the season where places really matter.

Complete results from the meet can be found at the website below.

 https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/336676/results

It is hard to believe that the Bob Cohoon Invitational is our first outdoor invitational meet with our full team. Weather forced four meets to be cancelled and you never know how the team will respond to its first taste of intense competition. However, earlier in the week, our team got together to set some exciting and lofty personal and team goals. Quite frankly, our athletes are aiming for the top. And while the Bob Cohoon Invitational lived up to its reputation for having outstanding competition, our team took another big step forward as we captured the invitational title with a score of 120.5 over Minooka’s 2nd place score of 96.5.

We started the meet off with success and kept it up throughout the entire night. In fact, out of 18 events, there was only one event in which we did not score. In 8 of the events, we took either 1st or 2nd place and we double scored in 6 events.

In the jumping events, Ife Oketona (Sr.) put us on the board early with a huge jump of 22’ 4.5” on his first attempt to take 1st place with a mark that is further than the State Qualifying Mark. Norman Dong (Sr.) took 7th place with a jump of 20’ 8.5” for our first double score of the night. Later in the meet, we would double score again in a horizontal jump when Mac Mitchell (Sr.) would take 2nd place with season best jump of 44’ 4” which equals the State Qualifying Mark. Alex Xiong (Sr.) would complete the double score with a jump of 41’ 6” which is an outdoor personal best. The pole vault would continue our set of double scoring events with Alex Kiefer (Jr.) taking 5th with a jump of 13’ 0” and Matt Dziekan (Sr.) taking 6th with a jump of 12’ 6”.

The throwing events would see history made when Matt Appel (So.) threw three consecutive throws in the Shot Put where each was further than the last and all were past the Frosh-Soph School Record. This record has been in place since 1999 and was held by Babatunde “OJ” Oshinowo, an athlete that would be All-State in the Shot Put and Discus several times and would later play professional football for the Bears and the Browns. Matt would take 2nd place in the Shot Put to Lockport’s John Meyer, the current State Record Holder. Matt would return in the discus to score again with a personal best throw of 146’ 1” to take 4th place. This was an impressive set of throws for a Sophomore competing at the Varsity level.

On the track, we opened up with the 4 x 800 m relay team of Nicolas Dovalovsky (Fr.), Chris Keeley (Jr.), Zach Kinne (Jr.) and Dakota Getty (Sr.) taking 3rd place with a time of 8:04.13. Nicolas split 2:02.2 which is very impressive for a Freshman and both Zach and Dakota both split under 1:59.

The 4 x 100 m relay team of Donovan Turner (Jr.), Kai Larson (Sr.), Patrick Hoffman (So.) and Myles Gascon (Sr.) finished in 2nd place with a time of 42.74, which was only .07 seconds out of first place and only .01 seconds away from the State Qualifying Mark. This would be the first event of four for both Myles and Donovan. In their second event of the evening, Donovan and Myles would race in the 110 m High Hurdles and the 100 m Dash respectively. Donovan placed 2nd in the hurdles with a mark of 14.40, which is the second fastest time in school history. In the 100 m, Myles would win the event with a mark of 11.10. However, both of these athletes were only half complete with their events at this point.

Returning to the distance events, the 3200 m saw another score with Ryan Kennedy (Sr.) taking 5th with an impressive last 800 m to cross the finish line in 9:21.12, which is a personal best and is well under the State Qualifying Mark. The 800 m would see more double scoring and more personal bests with Michael Madiol (Jr.) and Kel Foley (Jr.) taking 5th and 7th place respectively. Michael’s mark of 2:00.33 and Kel’s mark of 2:02.17 both represent big improvements and considering that neither of these athletes was in the 4 x 800 m, it shows how deep we are in this event.

The 4 x 200 m relay team of Norman Dong (Sr.), Ife Oketona (Sr.), Patrick Hoffman (So.) and Myles Gascon (Sr.) got off to a rough start as Norman was suffering from a tight back, but Ife, Patrick and Myles charged ahead to a time of 1:32.85 which was good enough for 6th place and a scoring position. This was the third event of the night for Myles, who ran an anchor split of 22.2.

After a week-long illness, Kai Larson (Sr.) was beginning to look a little like his old self in the 400 m where he finished 7th in a time of 51.44. The 300 m Intermediate Hurdles would have the rematch of Donovan Tuner (Jr.) and Batavia’s Sam Conger only this time the places were reversed with Donovan taking 1st place in a school-record setting time of 38.74, making this the second school record that was broken. When we were a younger program, we used to go out for Krispy Kreme doughnuts when three records were broken at this meet. However, our records are much harder to break now. Not to be outdone, Mitch Donahue (Sr.) would complete the double score in the 300 m Intermediate Hurdles with a mark of 41.37, which is a personal best by over 2 seconds! Mitch exclaimed after the race that he is going to state and his attitude is what we are looking for from everyone.

Zach Kinne (Jr.) and Dakota Getty (Sr.) completed their double event with another double score in the 1600 m. In another loaded field, Zach and Dakota were not afraid to mix it up and kicked hard to take 3rd and 5th place respectively. Zach’s time of 4:17.13 and Dakota’s time of 4:22.74 represent personal bests for both runners in the outdoor open 1600 m.

The meet drew to a close with two athletes completing a quadruple event meet. In the 200 m, Myles Gascon took 2nd place and would demonstrate that even after three events, he still had fire in his legs. Myles would run 22.88 which is yet another personal best. The 4 x 400 m relay of Kel Foley (Jr.), Donovan Turner (Jr.), Ife Oketona (Sr.) and Michael Dy (Sr.) would complete the quadruple for Donovan where the team ran 3:28.61 and Donovan, Ife, and Michael would post personal bests for their 400 m relay splits. We have not had an athlete even complete a quadruple at this meet since 2004, when Coach Ragusa was an athlete on the team and managed the feat himself.

This meet used to represent our Sectional Lineup preview. Even though that is not the case anymore, if we have a night like this at the Sectional Meet, we will have an amazing showing. However, the coaches and athletes know that we did not have a perfect night and there is still good work to be done. Our motto going into the next few weeks is “Make every rep count.” After all, there are only 5 weeks until the State Meet!

Complete results from the meet can be found at the website below.
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​https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/341102/results
 

One of the things that can be very frustrating about Track and Field in Illinois is the unpredictable weather. Your training can be disrupted and meets are sometimes conducted in rain, wind and even snow, or even worse, cancelled. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that we decide to make some of our own luck and make an annual pilgrimage to Arcadia, California for the Arcadia Invitational, considered to be one the most elite high school meets. Seeing some tough competition in your first outdoor meet of the season can be daunting for sure, but it promotes a response from our athletes to rise to the occasion. It may not happen immediately, but we will see the outcome in May when it matters. 

Our six athlete squad started things off on Friday night with the 4 x 1600 m relay, a rarely contested distance relay that gives us a good chance to show the strength of our distance squad. Tyler Bombacino (Sr.) started us off and pushed through the race despite continuing to suffer from a respiratory illness and struggled to maintain position. Dakota Getty (Sr.) would take the baton and run a solid leg as he chased through the pack to improve our position. Dakota's relay split of 4:26 is a personal best for the 1600 m. Next the baton went to Ryan Kennedy (Sr.) who did not seem to have his normal spark and later it was discovered that he was suffering from stomach pains. When Zach Kinne (Jr.) took the baton, there was quite a bit of work to do and Zach ran a smart and fast leg pushing through the line of teams to take us through the finish line in 6th place and a time of 17:46.60. This time is presently the fastest time in Illinois. However, with many meets being cancelled and some of this event being rarely contested, the lists are certainly not very long yet. 

As moved to the Saturday events, the morning session would see three of the runners from the 4 x 1600 m relay get another chance to race. Tyler Bombacino (Sr.) was still not feeling better from his illness but pushed through his open 1600 m race. After all, he did not come all this way not to race. Ryan Kennedy (Sr.) had recovered from his stomach issues the night before and ran a great first outdoor mile in 4:21.01 with the last 800 m being covered in 2:06. This time equates to a 4:19.5 for 1600 m and is a personal best in both events. In the 800 m, Dakota Getty recovered from getting tripped up early in the race and powered down the backstretch to put himself right back into place. The pace was not as fast as we had hoped but Dakota finished with an outdoor 800 m personal best of 1:59.23. 

After a short break, we returned to the track for the 110 m High Hurdles, where Donovan Turner (Jr.) would run for the first time in this event for the season. With a less than perfect start and a less than perfect finish, Donovan would win the seeded heat in 14.27, which is a new personal best by almost 0.4 seconds and a new school record! If Donovan had been in the invitational heat, he would have taken 4th. Donovan's mark is currently the best in Illinois. In the 100 m, Myles Gascon (Sr.) would make Neuqua Valley's first appearance in the invitational heat of a short sprint. Unfortunately, he did not continue his drive phase long enough and was disappointed with his mark of 11.14. However, Myles got up on Sunday, headed over to the track and practiced running his own race. As the wise Stacey Kinne has said "Sometimes not winning means that you learn something." It looks like Myles has. 

Speaking of the Kinne Family, Zach Kinne would finish out the meet for Neuqua Valley with his appearance in the invitational heat of the 3200 m. This race had a loaded field with sixteen state champions. The race went out fast and with the crowd, Zach was forced to run in lanes two and three and run extra distance to keep with the top pack. Zach came through the 1600 m mark at 4:30 peaking hopes for Zach to run under the 9 minute barrier. Unfortunately, Zach's efforts early on in the race cost him in the latter half and finished in a still very impressive 9:09.66. While Zach may have been disappointed, he ran a competitive race where he stuck himself right in the pack and fought hard. Efforts like this will pay off in the end. 

With another Arcadia Invitational in the books, we understand that we had some successes and disappointments, but more importantly, we look ahead to May knowing that until then there is still plenty of work to do. As we reunite with the rest of the team this next week, we are ready to begin the push to the State Meet, with us trying to get better every week.

Complete results from the meet may be found at the website below.

www.arcadiainvitational.org

Up next, we have an open meet with Waubonsie Valley and the Minooka Invitational. Both of these meets are chances to take a step forward in this six week march to the State Meet.  

Here are the workouts for Sprinters, Jumpers and Hurdlers for the week of spring break. Remember that you need to document your workouts in some way if you are out of town or we will hold you out of one meet after the break. Please feel free to email the coaches with any questions that you may have. If for some reason you are not able to do these exact workouts, just do your best. Something is always better than nothing.  

docs.google.com/document/d/1Eo7xCV2b1_4GsG3z8zcdafDwCce-s5phGL-rlq5ZwHY/edit?usp=sharing
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Not having everything go your way is a part of life and the reality is that you learn much more from the challenges than you would if everything went perfectly. Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise that despite not having many things go our way, our Varsity team won the DVC Indoor Championship for the third year in a row, besting a tough Wheaton Warrenville South team with a great display of resilience. Our Frosh-Soph team took 4th, and showed that they are ready to make great progress in the outdoor season.  Complete results are below, but there are many stories to be told. (Note: There are some mistakes in the results. We are aware of them and are trying to sort them out.)

www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/331245/results

The meet began with the Field Events and us putting some points on the board. KaLon Hale (So.) found his adversity by not making the bus in time but easily made up for it in his performance in the High Jump, where he jumped 5' 6" and took 4th place in only his second meet. Ife Oketona (Sr.) has some knee issues when he High Jumps, but he was still able to jump 5' 8", good enough for 6th place. In the Varsity Long Jump, Ife Oketona (Sr.) would place 2nd with a mark of 22' 0.25" and Joe Hanneman (Sr.) would put up a mark of 20' 1.5" and some points despite some trouble scratching his early jumps. The Triple Jump was one of our strengths at this meet and we double scored at both levels. The pair of Abood Armouti (So.) and EJ Oketona (Fr.) would put up marks of 40' 0" and 39' 9.25" respectively, taking 3rd and 5th place. These marks would have scored at the Varsity level! Mac Mitchell (Sr.) and Alex Xiong (Sr.) scored 14 points with their 2-3 finish at the Varsity level with jumps of 43' 0.25" and 42' 8.25" respectively. These were big personal bests for Abood, EJ, and Alex. The Frosh-Soph pole vault would have Paul Kiefer (So.) take 6th place and a scoring position while his brother Alex Kiefer (Jr.) would take 2nd at the Varsity level with a jump of 13' 0". Matt Dziekan (Sr.) jumped 12' 6" to take 6th at the Varsity level and give us a double score in that event. Rounding out the field events, Hunter Danton (Fr.) would claim 7th place at the Frosh-Soph level with a throw of 36' 10" while Matt Appel (So.) would take 4th at the Varsity level with a mark of 49' 1.25". Matt will go down as one of the best Sophomore throwers in team history.

As the running events began, we already had a good number of points moving us toward victory, but it is really on the track where the meet is finalized. After all, there are roughly twice the running events as there are field events. The Frosh-Soph 4 x 800 m relay of Brandon Do (Fr.), Luke Mennecke (Fr.), Leif Anderson (Fr.) and David Tassone (So.) ran very competitively and through great legs from Leif and David, we were able to move through the pack and capture 3rd place with a time of 8:58.56. The Varsity team of Michael O'Connor (Jr.), Jordan Matthews (Jr.), Kel Foley (Jr.) and Chris Keeley  ran 8:24.93 to take 4th with great splits all around including a first time under 2:05 for Kel and Chris running 2:05 after not being able to train steadily due to injury. The distance events would continue with a set of great performances from Ryan Horn (Fr.) and Quinn Kennedy (So.), running with each other nearly the entire race to take 3rd and 4th respectively with huge personal bests of 10:13.30 and 10:19.13. Ryan broke his personal best by over 25 seconds and Quinn by over 35 seconds! Ryan Kennedy (Sr.) and Alex Johnson (Sr.) would take 2nd and 5th in the Varsity 3200 m, with courageous and mature races where both Ryan and Alex balanced patience and a willingness to hold a top position, pulling the race along. Ryan finished in 9:27.66 which is under the State qualifying time in the 3200 m and Alex finished in another personal best time of 9:37.53.

The sprints would now take over the meet with the 55 m High Hurdles and special story. KaLon Hale (So.) and Enoch Kim (Fr.) would run this race for the first time and did so with great tenacity despite being nervous about the foreboding 39 inches that each hurdle stood. They may not have placed the highest, but KaLon and Enoch ran respectable races against athletes far more experienced. These athletes approached the race in the same way that Donovan Turner (Jr.) did in the Varsity race where he finished 2nd despite being hit by Lake Park's Dan Spejcher as they both cleared a hurdle. Donovan stumbled, but never lost focus running 7.73 and the second fastest time in team history. Mitch Donohue (Sr.) also charged to a great hurdle race and personal best, finishing in 8.53 seconds. The 55 m dash would be up next and a newcomer, Patrick Hoffman (So.). Patrick ran from the slow heat to take 4th overall in his first ever Track and Field meet in an impressive time of 6.90. The Varsity 55 m duo of Myles Gascon (Sr.) and Kai Larson (Sr.) would post up season bests with a 2nd and 7th place double score and marks of 6.56 and 6.81. Myles was only .03 seconds from first and was catching up the entire way after his blocks slipped at the start. However, like many others that experienced adversity, Myles never gave up or made excuses. He is ready to carve out some great races in the outdoor season. 

The sprints would break for a set of four impressive 800 m races and a side story. Nicolas Dovalovsky (Fr.) and Vasant Fong (Fr.) ran tough races to place 2nd and 5th place with significant personal bests. Nicolas would run nearly 6 seconds faster than his first race with a time of 2:03.92 and Vasant would run nearly 3 second faster with a time of 2:11.19. Since Zach Kinne (Jr.) did not have a seed time in the 800 m, he was forced to run in the slow heat. However, we knew that this would not deter Zach and he pushed himself, even a little too hard at first, to a 1:58.80, good enough for 4th place. In the fast heat, Dakota Getty (Sr.) simply would not let Joey Simon from Wheaton North pull away and ran nearly a 4 second personal best. Dakota's mark is under the State qualifying mark and is currently ranked 3rd in the State! Given Dakota's speed and endurance, we knew that he had it in him to run this fast. 

Here is the quick side story...

We kept Zach Kinne out of the longer races to make sure he was ready to race in the Texas Distance Festival in Southlake, Texas, the next day. Zach ran the 5000 m there, taking 8th place with a mark of 14:47.01, which is a personal best and the second fastest 5000 m time in team history! This is impressive considering that Zach had to race on Friday, travel on Saturday and then race Saturday night.    

Returning to the sprints with the 4 x 200 m, the Frosh-Soph team of Patrick Hoffman (So.), Christian Allen (Fr.), Jack Wharton (Fr.) and Ethan Thomas (Fr.) get the baton around the track with great exchanges, finishing 5th in a time of 1:41.17. Patrick would run a split of 23.8, which ranks with the Varsity athletes. Donovan Turner (Jr.), Ife Oketona (Sr.), Michael Dy (Sr.) and Myles Gascon (Sr.) would approach the Varsity race with a determination to come back from the issues in the short sprints only to have a sloppy exchange between Ife and Michael. However, Michael charged back to a personal best split in the 200 and Myles ran one of the fastest indoor 200 m splits (22.3) in team history, charging forward while staying relaxed for a 2nd place finish in 1:33.10. The 4 x 200 m was followed by the 400 m, where EJ Oketona (Fr.) and Jonah Covarrubias (Jr.) would record personal bests with times of 57.62 and 53.81. In the fast heat of the Varsity 400 m, Kai Larson (Sr.) took the lead at the break and held it until the last two steps when Joe Zubak from Wheaton Warrenville South nipped him at the line beating Kai by only .16 seconds over his time of 51.55.

 The last distance event of the evening was the 1600 m, which has Nicolas Dovalovsky (Fr.) and Vasant Fong (Fr.) returning after their 800 m race only a short time before. Nicolas would continue to impress as he became the first and only conference champion of the night in a time of 4:43.83 and  showing us that he had some intuition about racing strategy as he toyed with the other runners in the field. Vasant would finish 8th in a time of 4:47.32 for a solid double. In the Varsity 1600 m, Tyler Bombacino would take the lead early but Michael Madiol (Jr.) ran a smart tactical race with a big kick and the top four finishers would need to be sorted out by the FAT camera. In the end, Michael ran a 5 second personal best time of 4:23.80 to take 3rd with only .11 seconds separating the top three runners. Tyler would finish 4th in 4:24.12 and the points from this race would bring us closer to the team championship.                  
 
The 200 m again saw Patrick Hoffman take 4th place at the Frosh-Soph level as the rookie continued to dazzle us with his speed. His time of 24.41 would be in the middle of the Varsity pack in the next set of races. With the night closing to an end, Donovan Turner (Jr.) and Myles Gascon (Sr.) would carve out some of our final points with a 2-3 photo finish. Myles would take 2nd in 23.25 and Donovan would take 3rd in 23.27. With these 14 points, our team victory was guaranteed. 

However, we always want to win the 4 x 400 m and our Frosh-Soph relay of EJ Oketona (Fr.), Abood Armouti (So.), Jack Wharton (Fr.) and Christian Allen (Fr.) fought right to the finish line to win the heat but take 5th overall. Despite being interfered with by another runner in the home stretch, Christian kept his cool and brought baton home. The Varsity race started off with Joe Hanneman (Sr.) being interfered with at about 325 m and both Joe and a Wheaton North runner fell and lost the lead. Joe got up and handed off to Dakota Getty (Sr.) who fought hard to bring us back to the pack. Michael Dy would take the baton next and run out of his mind as he relentlessly chased the pack and put down a 52.1 split, which is a 2 second personal best! Finally, Kai Larson (Sr.) took the baton across the line for an unfortunate 5th place finish considering the efforts. 

However, the story of the Varsity 4 x 400 m was the same story that we had heard all night. Something happened in an event that did not go well. Our athletes responded positively and kept right on competing. We did not plan this lesson, but our athletes passed with flying colors. We might have had only one conference champion on this night, but together as we fought adversity, we rose as a team and claimed the trophy together. 

Up next, we have two weeks of solid training to get us ready for the outdoor season and with the lessons that indoor has taught us, we will be ready in the May.  

The name of the meet on Saturday was the York Boys Last Chance Open Meet since it was the last meet for most teams before their conference championship meets next week. However, this meet only showed that we are coming together as a team and improving from meet to meet. Here are the list of personal bests that were set on Saturday. There may be more, but athletes have to keep track of their data and let me know if they broke their own record. If I missed anyone, please let me know and I will update this list. Also, please keep in mind that the coaches could keep track of this for the athletes, but that is missing the point. Athletes need to take ownership of their performances so that they can measure their own improvement. 

PERSONAL BESTS
Christian Allen (Fr.) - 400 m - 1:00.27
Leif Anderson (Fr.) - 3200 m - 10:36.86
Matt Appel (So.) - Shot Put - 50' 0.5"
Tony Cai (Fr.) - 200 m  - 29.28, 400 m - 1:07.96
Amal Denny (Jr.) - 800 m - 2:14.87
Brandon Do (Fr.)  - 800 m - 2:17.10
Michael Dy (Sr.) - 200 m - 24.61, 400  m - 53.90
Nicolas Dovalovsky (Fr.) - 1600 m - 4:43.86
Vasant Fong (Fr.) - 1600 m - 4:45.65
William Fu (Fr.) - 800 m - 2:26.51
Dakota Getty (Sr.) - 400 m - 53.59
Jacob Guthrie (Jr.) - 55 m - 7.08, 200 m - 25.01
Daniel Gutierrez (Fr.) - 1600 m - 5:13.10
Matthew Havlin (Fr.) - 1600 m - 5:33.36
JD Hastings (Fr.) - 1600 m - 5:39.56
Ryan Horn (Fr.) - 1600 m - 4:55.57
Dominick Gramarosso (Fr.) - 3200 m - 12:44.18
Alex Johnson (Sr.) - 1600 m - 4:25.86
Sam Jourdan (So.) - Shot Put - 34' 2.5"
Quinn Kennedy (So.) - 1600 m - 4:56.84
Ryan Kennedy (Sr.) - 1600 m - 4:19.99
Zach Kinne (Jr.) - 1600 m - 4:15.47
Matthew Lindell (Sr.) - 3200 m - 10:39.99
Michael Madiol (Jr.) - 3200 m - 9:54.78
Calvin McIntytre (Sr.) - 1600 m - 5:01.94
Evan McVittie (Sr.) - 3200 m - 10:23.66
Jack Orengo (Jr.) - 3200 m - 10:08.89
Danny Osafo (Sr.) - Triple Jump - 41' 2.5"
Jailen Poole (Fr.) - 200 m - 26.80, 400 m - 1:01.23, Pole Vault - 8' 1", High Jump - 5' 4"
Kevin Saju (Fr.) - 1600 m - 5:42.54
Aakash Sivasankar (Jr.) - Shot Put - 34' 7"
Ethan Smetana (So.) - 1600 m - 6:08.14
David Tassone (So.) - 800 m - 2:15.30
Donovan Turner (Jr.) - 55 m High Hurdles - 7.72, 400 m - 53.29
Alan Xie (Fr.) - 400 m - 1:09.90
Alex Xiong (Sr.) - Triple Jump - 40' 11"
Anthony Xu (Jr.) - 200 m - 25.72

The complete results from the meet are available at the link below. Remember that if you click on an athlete name, you will see all of their performances to date. 

www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/334550/results

While this meet was not about team scores or place, it is worth noting that we took first place in the 55 m, the 400 m, the 800 m, the 1600 m, the 3200 m, the 55 m High Hurdles, as well as the top three places in the Triple Jump and second place in the Shot Put. Just like we were hoping for, our team took another step forward on Saturday. 

Finally, we had two records broken at the meet. Zach Kinne (Jr.) broke the 1600 m field house record with his personal best time of 4:15.47. We now have two field house records at the Joe Newton Field House at York, since Kai Larson (Sr.) holds the 400 m record there. Also, Donovan Turner (Jr.) broke the 55 m High Hurdle school record with his time of 7.72.

This week we compete in the DVC Indoor Conference Championship at North Central College on Friday. We hope to see everyone there as we conclude our indoor season! 

Sometimes it is hard to put together your best relays. In a normal meet, you have to balance what athletes need to do in individual events and the team score. Therefore, it is a nice change of pace to go to a meet where we can put everything aside except the relays and just try to post up some great times with our best relays. This was the point of the annual Mustang Relays at North Central College on Monday night. Three relays run with some of the best teams in the state pushing each other to some fast times.

The night began with the 4 x 800 m relay of Dakota Getty (Sr.), Ryan Kennedy (Sr.), Zach Kinne (Jr.) and Tyler Bombacino (Sr.) running in the fastest heat with some tough teams. Despite getting shoved around a little at the start, Dakota got right into the mix of the race. Then, after the first lap, Dakota clipped another runner and nearly fell. However, the fall seemed to wake Dakota up a little and he charged right back to pace finishing his leg in just over 2 minutes. Ryan then took the baton and ran a very smooth race as he slowly reeled in the pack and put us right into the thick of the race, with a blistering last 150 m to finish his leg just under 1:59. As Zach took the baton, he was in good position to move the team up even further and did just that as he worked his way up toward the lead. Zach ran tough and smooth even though he was not feeling well and brought us right behind the leaders, finishing with another leg just under 1:59. A determined Tyler would race hard to catch the leader and sat right on that position for as long as he could, pushing himself to finish with a solid 1:59.6 split and a 2nd place finish to Downers Grove North. The team's overall time was 7:57.74, which is faster than the state qualifying time, is presently the #2 mark in state and is the second fastest mark we have ever run in the 4 x 800 m at the Mustang Relays. 

Sometimes it is best not to be in the fastest heat, especially in the 4 x 200 m relay. The fastest heats can be crowded and the traffic can slow you down. When we put in the lineup, we were not sure if Kai Larson (Sr.) would be able to come back from illness. As a result, we seeded our team based on the fact that we might not have our team at full strength. Our thought was that we could not lose: if we were not at full strength, we would be in the right heat. If we were at full strength, we could run free in the lead. When Donovan Turner (Jr.) took off out of the blocks and accelerated down the back stretch, it was obvious that he was on a mission. By the exchange, we were in the lead and Donovan had clocked a 23.2 split. Kai would take over for the second leg and would show that his illness was behind him. Our team increased the lead and Kai put down a 22.9 split, even with some awkward exchanges. Ife Oketona (Sr.) would continue to press for the third leg and would stretch the lead with a near perfect stride to give him his fastest 200 m split ever. By the time that Myles Gascon (Sr.) took the baton, the race was really a time trial and Myles took the heat with a comfortable lead and another sub 23 second split. The team finish in a time of 1:32.06 which was much faster than we expected to run. Now we had to wait for the last two heats to see how we stacked up to the rest of the competition. Heat 5 was strong, but no team bested our mark. As we watched Heat 6, we saw similar splits to ours, but with far more bumping and traffic and as Minooka's team came down the final stretch, we watched the clock tick past our time and knew we had won the 4 x 200 m from one of the slow heats and secured a mark that is presently #2 in the state.

Hoping to capitalize on the success of the previous two relays, the 4 x 400 m relay team of Jonah Covarrubias (Jr.), Kel Foley (Jr.), Kai Larson (Sr.) and Donovan Turner (Jr.) stepped to the line. Jonah got out strong, but was not able to get into his normal rhythm and after a rough exchange, Kel was not able to move up much. Kai would take the baton and with the thoughts of illness behind him, would push toward the lead, passing other runners with ease and bringing us near the lead of the heat. Kai finished his leg with a 51.9 split and gave the baton to Donovan who would take the lead near the end of the first lap and never relinquish it. Donovan's 52.9 split would be his fastest 400 m of the season and our time of 3:34.78 also be a season best for the team. Even with us not running our best, we were still able to put up the 21st best time in the state right now. 

Complete results from the meet can be found at the website below. 

​​www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/318491/results

We finish our regular indoor season this Saturday with an open meet at York and then it is back to North Central College for the DVC Indoor Conference Championship!

This past Thursday, our entire team competed at Plainfield East High School with Plainfield East, Metea Valley and Naperville North. No scores were kept as this meet was really just a chance for athletes to achieve marks. Since Plainfield East does not allow spikes and has very narrow turns, it can be quite a challenge to achieve a personal best there. However, the following athletes did just that. Here is the list of personal bests that were set at this meet. 

Joe Sampson (Jr.) - 55 m - 7.0
Aditya Sathyaprakash (Jr.) - 55 m - 6.9
Christian Allen (Fr.) - 200 m - 27.7 
Paul Kiefer (So.) - 200 m - 26.1
Dylan Harper (Jr.) - 800 m - 2:32.0
Dominick Gramarosso (Fr.) - 1600 m - 6:03.0
Ryan Horn (So.) - 1600 m - 5:03.0
Norman Dong (Sr.) - Triple Jump - 39' 10"
Danny Osafo (Sr.) - Triple Jump - 40' 9"
​
If an athlete set a personal best and it is not listed, this is because they did not report the mark or personal best to the managers or coaches. 

One expectation we have of our athletes is that they know their personal bests in all of the events. Fortunately, with the internet, this is very easy. There are two online programs that compile athlete Track and Field data. The first is Athletic.net. Please use the link below to go to the website, put your name in the search bar and it will have all of your performance data. The data from this meet is not in yet, but it will be there soon.  

www.athletic.net/

The other program that we use for our team is trackcentral.net. This is where we keep all of the data for our team and includes some non-competition data like time trials and our tryout meet. Athletes should have been sent their usernames and passwords earlier in the season. If you need this sent to you, please let me know. The data from this meet will be in Track Central soon. 

www.trackcentral.net

For our "open" meets, there will not always be a write-up, but instead there will be posts like this one with athlete personal bests. Therefore, athletes should be familiar with these sites and their marks so they can see their improvements. 

This week we have the Mustang Relays on Monday for our top Varsity relays and a meet at York on Saturday. We hope to see you there! 

Over the past weekend, we competed in our first invitational meet, the Olivet Nazarene University High School Classic. Our team placed 2nd to Homewood-Flossmoor for the second week in a row with a score of 117 to Neuqua Valley’s 111. This is a smaller margin of victory for Homewood-Flossmoor than last week.

The meet began with some school records being broken within the preliminaries. In the 60 m High Hurdles, Mitch Donahue (Sr.) broke the record in that event with a mark of 9.49, but it would not last long. In the next heat, Donovan Turner (Jr.) would smash the record, running 8.32 to win the heat. Jacob Guthrie (Jr.) would also dip under the previous record with a time of 9.49. When it came to the finals, Donovan Turner would drop the record once again with a time of 8.21 and the meet victory. The 60 m Dash also saw a record fall with Myles Gascon (Sr.) resetting his own record by one hundredth of a second making the mark 7.10. In the finals of the 60 m, Myles would take 5th place among some of the top sprinters in the State. Myles and Donovan would later race in the 200 m dash, nearly tying with times of 23.64 and 23.67.

In the distance events, Zach Kinne (Jr.), Ryan Kennedy (Sr.) and Alex Johnson (Sr.) took the top three places in the 3200 m with Zach running 9:09.74, which is the fastest time in the State! Both Zach’s time and Ryan’s time of 9:28.50 would qualify for the State Meet, which is incredible considering that this was their first 3200 m of the season. Zach and Ryan would double back in the 600 m only 45 minutes later and run 1:26.48 and 1:29.46, respectively. Alex Johnson’s mark of 9:42.24 represents a huge personal best. Dakota Getty (Sr.) would place 4th in the 800 m with an indoor personal best time of 2:01.68. Dakota would later come back in the 4 x 400 m relay to post a split of 53.4, which was the fastest of the day. In the 1600 m, Tyler Bombacino (Sr.) would take the lead from the gun and would never relinquish, winning with a time of 4:24.53. Michael Madiol (Jr.) would take third with a time of 4:28.41, which is a personal best.

In the field events, history was made when Lockport’s John Meyer (Sr.) recorded the furthest Shot Put in indoor state history. Congratulations to John for his amazing mark of 68’ 4”. Matt Appel (So.) took third with a mark of 49’ 8.5”, which is less than a foot from the indoor Neuqua Valley Frosh-Soph record which was set by Babatunde “OJ” Oshinowo, who would later play in the NFL and was recently inducted into the Neuqua Valley Athletics Hall of Fame. In the Pole Vault, Matt Dziekan took fourth with a personal best jump of 12’ 0”. The Long Jump would see Ife Oketona (Sr.) and Joe Hanneman (Sr.) take 4th and 6th respectively, with jumps of 21’ 7” and 21’ 1”. Joe’s mark is an overall personal best and he followed it up later in the day with a great leg in the 4 x 400 m even with a troublesome hamstring. Mac Mitchell (Sr.) took 2nd in the Triple Jump with a leap of 43’ 9.5”, which is a season best. Considering that we do not have a pit in which to practice the horizontal jumps, our athletes are making great progress.

While the athletes and stories listed above are impressive and put many of the points toward our team score, what really stood out during the meet were the myriad of smaller stories. Many of the athletes that competed on Saturday may not have been our strongest athletes in an event, but they competed like they were and did not back down against strong competition. Here are some examples and we wish there was space for them all:

Spencer Teske (Jr.) and Jack Orengo (Jr.) ran impressive legs in the 4 x 800 m with Jack holding off a charge from a Homewood-Flossmoor anchor with another great kick. That is twice in two weeks for Jack!

After breaking the school record in the 60 m High Hurdles which was later bested by Donovan Turner (Sr.), Mitch Donahue completed a triple by setting indoor personal bests in the 400 m and 200 m.

Michael Dy (Sr.) competed in the triple of the 60 m High Hurdles, the 4 x 200 m and the 4 x 400 m, where he had some impressive splits in the relays.

Jonah Covarrubias (Jr.) competed in the triple of the 60 m Dash, the 4 x 200 m and the 4 x 400 m, with Jonah dipping under 54 seconds in the 400 m for the first time indoors.
​
Norman Dong (Sr.) competed in the triple of the Long Jump, the 4 x 200 m and the 4 x 400 m, keeping up with some of the top sprinters in the relays.
​
Paul McIntyre (Sr.) took control of his heat of the 600 m after running from behind to take the heat win in a time of 1:36.61.

Kel Foley (Jr.) would run an indoor personal best of 2:07.36 in the 800 m only to come back in the 4 x 400 m with a 54.3 split.

Then we had our Freshmen crew, which competed in this meet as Varsity athletes without fear. From Nicolas Dovalovsky (Fr.) and Vasant Fong (Fr.) in the 800 m posting times of 2:10.11 and 2:14.30 to Christian Allen (Fr.) in the 60 m to Ethan Briones (Fr.) in the Triple Jump to EJ Oketona (Fr.) running an overall personal best in the 400 m with a mark of 57.80, our Freshmen showed up. Christian and Ethan were both asked before the meet if they were interested in a spot if it came open, regardless of the event. They both quickly replied “Yes” and filled in for us. Ethan had never tried Triple Jump before and was able to make it past the minimum Varsity mark in his first time! Jack Wharton (Fr.) would compete in the 200 m and Hunter Danton (Fr.) would throw the second best Freshman mark in the meet in the Shot Put. Finally, Leif Anderson (Fr.), who normally competes as a distance runner, competed in the High Jump and was able to clear 5’ 0”.  
These “smaller” stories are those of the athletes that are really the glue of our team. We know that no matter which athletes we send to a meet, we know that we can count on them to represent us well.

Complete results from the meet can be found at the website below.

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/325792/results

This week we have an “open” meet on Thursday night at Plainfield East. We hope to see everyone there as the smaller stories grow into bigger ones.
  

aThe first meet of the season always has some ups and downs. Our team only sees a track when we are at meets so there is quite a bit of learning that takes place at each meet. However, we had a great showing for our first time with real competition and we can see that great things are in store for us. 

As a team, we placed 2nd to a very strong but sprint-heavy Homewood-Flossmoor team on their home track. Considering that the score was 115 to 99.5, we were not that far from what some consider to be the best team in the State. 

Field events are tough for us to practice at times, but Neuqua Valley showed up strong here. In the Shot Put, Matt Appel (So.) threw 48-1 to secure a huge personal best and to win the meet. The Pole Vault saw Alex Kiefer (Jr.) and Matt Dziekan (Sr.) take first and third respectively with jumps of 12-6 and 11-0 while only jumping from short approaches. In the High Jump, Chris Guo (Jr.) and newcomer Byron Walker (Sr.) took 4th and 6th. Finally, in the horizontal jumps, Ife Oketona (Sr.) took 3rd in the Long Jump with a leap of 20-8 while Norman Dong (Sr.) took 4th with a mark of 20-4. Our depth in the long jump showed with three jumpers, Joe Hanneman (Sr.), Mac Mitchell (Sr.) and Danny Osafo (Sr.) taking places 6th, 7th and 8th. We saw similar results in the Triple Jump, where Mac Mitchell (Sr.) won the meet with a jump of 41-11, but was followed in place by Alex Xiong (Sr.), Danny Osafo (Sr.) and Darren Huang (Sr.) placing 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively. Given the fact that these athletes were jumping without spikes and without a jump board, these are some solid first meet marks. 

To preserve Homewood-Flossmoor's beautiful facility, spikes are not allowed. However, this means that many of our athletes were missing out on the advantage of running or jumping with spikes. Regardless, Neuqua Valley athletes persevered and post some great early marks. 

In the sprints, Myles Gascon (Sr.) and Kai Larson (Sr.) would show that we could keep up with the home team in the shorter events by placing 3rd and 6th in the 60 m. Myles ran 7.11 to break his own school record for the 4th time in a row. Kai would run 7.30, which is faster than the original school record set two years ago. Later in the meet, Kai would run a season opening 52.46 to take 2nd in the 400 m dash and near the end of the meet, Kai and Myles would tie for 3rd with a mark of 23.61 in the 200 m dash. 

The middle distance events, Chris Wiemer (Sr.) would take 7th in the 600 m with a time of 1:37.38 and Kel Foley (Jr.) took 4th in the 800 m with a time of 2:09.79.  Both of these are solid early season marks for athletes that are still getting into shape. 

Our relays were events that the athletes mainly put together as training and to help athletes push each other through some friendly rivalries. The 4 x 200 m relay of Jonah Covarrubias (Jr.), Jackson Russelburg (Jr.), Aditya Sathyaprakash (Jr.) and Joe Sampson (Jr.) took 4th overall without our top sprinters. In the 4 x 400 m, our distance running senior team of Dakota Getty (Sr.), Ryan Kennedy (Sr.), Alex Johnson (Sr.) and Tyler Bombacino (Sr.) would take 4th and the junior team of Zach Kinne (Jr.), Chris Keeley (Jr.), Michael Madiol (Jr.) and Michael O'Connor (Jr.) would take 5th. All of these athletes had run the 1600 m just a hour before this final event. 

Speaking of the distance events, the 3200 m was won by Jack Orengo (Jr.) in a time of 10:13.70 with a great kick to hold off Minooka's Hunter Phillips. Kevin Daneliak (Jr.), Lief Anderson (Fr.) and Stephen Smilie (Fr.) would take 3rd, 4th and 7th respectively to round out that event. Despite the excitement of this race, there was little that could prepare us for the 1600 m.  

In the 1600 m, Neuqua Valley athletes took control of the race from the gun, with Zach Kinne (Jr.) leading the pack at a blistering pace. As the race unfolded, not only would we see something special from the lead, but from an entire pack of eight athletes. In the final laps, Zach would continue to set the pace and claim the win with a time of 4:17.43. However, on this day we would have eight athletes with marks under 4:33 as shown below. Most of these performances would be among to the top indoor marks in the 1600 m that we have ever had and this was accomplished without spikes. Of course, as the famous coach Ted Haydon used to say, "If you slip, you have a 50% chance of slipping forward." 

1. 11 Zach Kinne 4:17.43a PR Neuqua Valley
2. 12 Ryan Kennedy 4:23.73a PR Neuqua Valley
3. 12 Tyler Bombacino 4:24.48a PR Neuqua Valley
4. 12 Dakota Getty 4:27.49a PR Neuqua Valley
5. 11 Chris Keeley 4:29.95a PR Neuqua Valley
6. 11 Michael Madiol 4:31.96a PR Neuqua Valley
7. 12 Alex Johnson 4:32.56a PR Neuqua Valley
8. 11 Michael O'Connor 4:32.93a PR Neuqua Valley

This is a great sign of things to come from our distance squad. 

Many of our athletes scored personal bests at the meet and complete results can be found at the site below. 

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/326254/results

Next Saturday, we travel to Olivet-Nazarene University for our next invitational where we hope to take another step forward as individuals and as a team. We hope to see you there!