A First Chance for Varsity Competition

Sunday, April 21 2024 - Red Grange Invite (Wheaton Warrenville South)

As any spring sport coach knows there are fun and exciting challenges as the end of the year looms. This weekend at PHS was prom, the same night our trip up to Wheaton Warrenville South for one of the most competitive meets in the state, the Red Grange Invitational. What did that mean for the Wildcats? It meant we were down 11 varsity athletes who would normally be in the lineup. A chance for lots of frosh/soph and JV athletes to see high level varsity competition for the first time. Many athletes took advantage and came away with some big break through races.

Jake Michel has now run 3 300 hurdle races in his life, the 3^rd time was the charm as he dropped 3 seconds from his previous 3 attempts and broke 45 seconds for the first time, a big step forward. As Jake learns more of the event that time will continue to drop this year.

Raymond Churchill and Adrian Castillo took advantage of great distance competition to run big time lifetime bests in the 1600. Adrian dropped nearly 10 seconds, and Raymond dropped 16 to break 5 minutes for the first time.

In the 800 both Aden Veljacic and Dominik Barrios had PRs, and Dom came back with a PR in the open 400 as well.

Kalib Smith had the other big PR on the night in the 200 meter dash.

Looking at results and not seeing points on the board is tough, but had prom not been a factor we would have seen some very competitive races for our guys. Two examples that stick out are Torrance Freeman and Luke Adair. Both guys had to run the A level for their respective events. Had we had a full roster they more than likely would have been in the C section and looking at results they would have been right towards the front in those races. But that is not how track and field works, you race with who you have on the night, and hopefully the Wildcats will walk away having learned something from a very tough challenge in a lot of their first varsity invitational competition.

The team is back in action on Thursday at home for Senior Night and The Hunt Invitational.