A Busy Week of Racing

Saturday ended a very busy week of racing for the Wildcats. On Tuesday we had our Senior Night dual against Plainfield East, Thursday was the Joe Mortimer Frosh/Soph meet, and then Saturday was the Peoria High Invitational.

The Mortimer meet is a great chance for the underclassmen to get to race against athletes their own age. The freshman got us rolling with a great performance upfront from Ubaldo Rodriguez who was in contention to win the race for the first 2 and a half miles, Ubaldo battled tough to the finish in 6^th place running a time equal to his personal best. Luke Huntowski, Gabe Ibarra and Adrian Castillo all took advantage of their opportunity and ran personal bests as well. The race of the day may have been Justin Matula who ran a nearly 3 minute personal best.

Colin Elder had a big breakout race to run a 1 minute season best and only 1 second off his lifetime best. Arnold Arce led the sophomores upfront equaling his personal best. Raymond Churchill ran a monster last mile to pass a ton of people to earn a medal.

Saturday at Peoria the top 7 had a chance to take another step forward. Missing two of the top 7 due to injury it was time for the team to step up, and step up they did. Mike Forbear and Paul De Avila led the way up front both running personal bests and breaking 15:40 for the first time. The rally cry of the team the last few weeks is to attack the 2^nd and 3^rd mile and both Mike and Paul did just that. The next pack was led by Cam Mulyk who ran like a man on a mission, and when he started to hurt he relied on his guts and teammates to push him along. Aaron Wyckoff followed closely next and then Alex Rojo. Only 7 seconds separated Cam, Aaron, and Alex, that is the type of pack running that will pay off in November. Jayson Matula came in next with his first race under 17. Kyle Schick finished out the day for us has he battled a hamstring issue for the second half of the race. As a team, the guys averaged under 16 minutes for 3 mile with our top 5, something that I believe may be the first time that has been done in PHS history.

The guys took a big step, but there is still more out their to achieve. Peoria was a step in the right direction and something to use to build confidence to improve upon.