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"
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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!