Race and Compete

As an athlete you can’t control the conditions, you can control how you compete. On Friday night at Wheaton Warrenville South the team had a great chance to compete. The ABC format gave lots of athletes opportunities to be in competitive sections and events, and many athletes took advantage of that opportunity.

The field events got us rolling on a cold and windy day. The horizontal jumps crew scored some big points and came away with some PRs. Kedan Strickland is starting to round back into the form he ended last season on, and took 4^th place in both long and triple jump (A section). Michael Jackson hit a good one in the long jump to finish in 6^th place with a PR (B section). James Kulekowskis took 2^nd in triple and 4^th in long with a nice PR in the long jump (C section). Jesse Perez took 3^rd in shot put (B section) and hit a nice PR. Christian Martin took home 5^th place in the shot put (A section)

The sprint crew had some strong performances as well. Freshman Torrance Freeman ran a top 20 time in the state for a freshman in the 100 (11.67) to take 4^th in the C section. Christian Crowder dipped just below his PR in the 400 (54.98). And a big shout out to Jake Michel who despite being sick for most of the time between the 400 and the 4x400 still begging to run the race, and then huge shout out to Alex Haberkamp who thought his night was over, only to hop on to the track after the 4x400 had already started to fill in for Jake. Scott Freischlag had a little more prep time but he also filled in late in the 4x400. Love seeing guys want the chance to compete. Nice job Jake, Scotty and Alex, those attitudes will come up clutch for these three sophomores in the future.

The distance crew came away with some big PRs and learned a lot about racing and competing. Wyatt Fullam was a last-minute change into the 4x800 due to illness and took advantage of the chance by running his fastest 800 (open or relay) by nearly 5 seconds. Ubaldo Rodriguez came back from a rough leg in the 4x800 and ran a PR in the open 800 about an hour late. Juniors Tyler Schick and Arnold Arce took their first crack at the distance double (3200 & 1600) and they executed masterfully. Arnold ran a a very tactically sound 3200 and moved up place by place the last half of the race and closed with a strong last lap to run a 10 second PR to take 2^nd in the B section. Arnold came back to run within 3 seconds of his PR in the 1600. Tyler Schick ran a 39 second PR with a negative split race in the 3200 and finished 4^th overall closing in 67 for his last lap, Tyler came back and ran within a few seconds of his 1600 PR to end his night.

The guys are back in action on Thursday at our home meet and Senior Night, The Hunt Invitational.