RED ribbon Invitational (4-28-2018)

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