DVC outdoor championship (5-10-2019)

On Friday night, there was finally a break in the otherwise cold and rainy weather for the DuPage Valley Conference Outdoor Championships. Our Varsity team took 2nd place to Naperville Central and our Frosh-Soph team took 3rd place.

Complete results can be found at the link below. 

www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/380628/results

In the throwing events, our throwers continue to show incredible progress and depth. In the Frosh-Soph Discus, Elijah Darden (So.) threw 129' 7", a personal best, to win the meet after coming back from injury, and Martin Kiefer (Fr.) took 4th with a throw of 114' 08". At the Varsity level, Matt Appel (Jr.) threw 171' 8", a personal best, for the win and was just over 2 feet from the school record. Matt's mark is well beyond the State Qualifying Mark in the Discus. Moving up a level for this meet was Hunter Danton (So.), who took 2nd with a throw of 150' 4" and was only a few feet away from the State Qualifying Mark with this personal best throw. In the Shot Put, Elijah Darden would return to throw 39' 11" and take 5th place with another personal best. In the Varsity Shot Put, Matt Appel took home another meet victory, another personal best and another mark surpassing the State Qualifying Mark with his throw of 55' 10". Matt was followed closely by Jacob Remack (Sr.) who threw 48' 1" to take 2nd place and Hunter Danton who took 4th place with another personal best of 46' 10". 

In the vertical jumps, three of our Sophomores, Goutham Baskaran (So.), Jailen Poole (So.) and Jonathan Martinez (So.) took 2nd, 3rd and 6th places respectively in the Frosh-Soph Pole Vault with jumps of 11' 4", 10' 4" and 9' 4". Goutham and Jailen's marks were personal bests. Jonathan also placed 5th in the Frosh-Soph High Jump with a personal best jump of 5' 3". In the Varsity Pole Vault, Alex Kiefer (Sr.) won the event with an outdoor personal best of 13' 8" while Trevor Lambert (Sr.) took 4th with a jump of 13' 2, also a personal best. 

In the horizontal jumps, Jailen Poole (So.) jumped 19' 11.25" for the win in the Frosh-Soph Long Jump, giving him a personal best and staked his claim as the top Neuqua Valley Long Jumper. Ethan Thomas (So.) took 4th with a jump of 18' 9". In the Varsity Long Jump, EJ Oketona (So.) took 3rd place with a personal best jump of 19' 8.75" and Alex Kiefer (Sr.) jumped 19' 2.75, which was good enough for 5th place. In the Frosh-Soph Triple Jump, Daniel Shin (So.) took 4th with a personal best jump of 36' 9.25". The Varsity Triple Jump would see EJ Oketona take 3rd with a jump of 41' 4" and yet another PR. Abood Armouti (Jr.) returned to competition after a slight hamstring issue to take 6th place with  a mark of 39' 5". 

On the track, the action got started with two distance relays. The Frosh-Soph 4 x 800 m relay team of  Daniel Gutierrez (So.), Luke Suman (So.), Luke Mennecke (So.) and Kevin Saju (So.) took 3rd in a time of 8:57.73 and showed that there is still some room for improvement with pacing. In the Varsity 4 x 800 m relay, Max Mitchell (Fr.), Nicolas Dovalovsky (So.), Michael Madiol (Sr.) and Michael O'Connor (Sr.) ran 8:04.90, with both Michaels running sub 1:58 splits, giving the team their season best time. Michael O'Connor would later run the open 800 m at the Varsity level and took 3rd in a time of 1:58.76, giving Michael an impressive double for the evening.

In the Frosh-Soph 4 x 100 m , Ethan Briones (So.), Daniel Shin (So.), Kieran Tharbs (Fr.), and Jailen Poole (So.) ran 45.94 to take 3rd in a season best time. The same relay members later reunited for a conference championship tie with Metea Valley in the 4 x 200 m relay with a time of 1:38.85. In the Varsity 4 x 100 m, Max Rivera (So.), Patrick Hoffman (Jr.), Michael Grawe (Sr.) and Christian Allen (So.) took 2nd in a time of 44.37 even with a few small mistakes in the exchanges.  The Varsity team would also return later in the meet for another 2nd place in the 4 x 200 m relay in a time of 1:33.20. One of the Varsity sprint relay members, Christian Allen (So.) would also take 5th place in both the Varsity 100 m Dash and the Varsity 200 m Dash with marks of 11.45 and 23.68, both personal bests for Christian. 

Returning to the distance events, Stephen Smilie (So.) and Aidan Stone (So.) both turned in personal best marks in the Frosh-Soph 3200 m with times of 10:00.24 and 10:00.74, respectively. In the Varsity 3200 m, Matt Jett (Sr.) took 2nd place, with a personal best time of 9:45.16. Later in the meet, the 1600 m would see more personal bests and top places as Vasant Fong (So.) took 3rd in 4:41.68, which is a season best, and Noah Schalliol (So.) took 4th in 4:42.62, which is also a personal best. At the Varsity level, Michael Madiol (Sr.) took 4th in 4:23.51, after running in the 4 x 800 m relay, combining for a solid double. Chris Keeley (Sr.) took 5th in 4:26.04, which is a personal best and shows that Chris is making huge progress after a lingering injury. 

Enoch Kim (So.) placed in both the Frosh-Soph 110 m High Hurdles and the Frosh-Soph 300 m Intermediate Hurdles, taking 5th and 6th places respectively, with times of 17.22 and 45.32. Both of these marks are personal bests for Enoch. The Varsity hurdle events saw the return of Donovan Turner (Sr.) to competition after a hamstring injury. Because Donovan did not have a seed time from the season, he raced from the slow heat to win both Varsity hurdle events, running 15.08 in the 110 m High Hurdles and 41.32 in the 300 m Intermediate Hurdles.  

The middle distance or long sprint events had Leif Anderson (So.) making a big move of the second lap of the Frosh-Soph 800 m to take 3rd in an outdoor personal best time of 2:09.75. Ethan Thomas (So.) would make a similar move in the Frosh-Soph 400 m Dash, where Ethan placed 6th in a time of 54.32, which is a personal best and earned him a spot on the sectional roster. The night closed with a 4th place finish from the Frosh-Soph 4 x 400 m relay team of Ethan Briones (So.), Ethan Thomas (So.), Brandon Do (So.) and Cory Papastathis (Fr.), running 3:42.96. The Varsity 4 x 400 m relay team of Max Mitchell (Fr.), Kel Foley (Sr.), EJ Oketona (So.) and Patrick Hoffmann (Sr.) closed out the night with a 3rd place finish in 3:36.90. 

While the team outcome may not have been all that we hoped for, we are shaking off some injuries and getting ready to qualify as many athletes as possible for the State Meet in two weeks. However, at this time, we should not just be looking at the near future, but the far future as well. Looking at the results above, we moved up six Frosh-Soph athletes to the Varsity level. This shows that our future seasons have the potential to be bright ones. Also, when you look at how many personal bests were set, we see that our training gets athletes ready at the right time of the season. Therefore, as we look forward, we know that some athletes are done competing for the season, but they need to continue to train. We welcome them to continue to train with the Sectional and State Teams and to really make progress over the summer in our summer camps. If you have not yet registered, please make sure to do so soon at our website below. 

www.wildcatxctf.com