It took another 39 years to return to the podium, but the 2016 Eagles made it happen with another 3rd place finish!
The Prelims on Friday.
The prelims got off to a choppy start, with weather causing the field events to be moved indoors. At the indoor fieldhouse, our long jump entrant, Ayo Abiona took full advantage of the situation with a leap of 22 ft. 11.75 inches. This proved to be the 3rd longest jump of the prelim flights. It felt great to have Ayo qualified for the finals with a really solid jump.
On the track, the threat of bad weather convinced the officials to switch over to a rolling schedule. This heightened the nerves a bit, but our guys were very experienced and prepared for anything.
First up was our 4 x 800 meter relay team. Although we were the returning State champs here, the guys still felt like they had some unfinished business. The first step was to get thru the first day and qualify for the finals. Running in heat no. 3 of the prelims, Tom Brennan took the lead off leg and raced to the front on the opening lap. He did get passed by OPRF & LT on lap 2, but still ran a very solid 1:56.6 before handing the baton to Brandon Lukas. Brandon re-took the lead on the first lap, but eventually tied up a bit on the homestretch and finished with a 1:59.4 split and handed to David Gleisner. David would be running the 3200 meter run in the finals on Saturday, but for the prelims he helped his team with a nice 1:58.9 3rd leg and handed off in 4th place to our anchor, Chris Torpy. With Chris' experience and talent, there was little doubt that he would bring the stick around fast enough to qualify his team. His 1:55.6 split brought the team home in 3rd place with a qualifying time of 7:50.95
Our 4 x 100 meter relay team was up next. Given the number of races and events on his schedule, Coach Nemeth and Coach Malec made the decision to have Ayo Abiona skip this relay. Our foursome of Jordon Woods, Jibreel Brown, Leo Espino and Josh Scheldberg gave it all they had, but missed qualifying for the finals with a time of 43.39.
Racing in the 5th and final prelim heat of the 100 meter dash, Ayo Abiona finished in 2nd place, but qualified for the final with a time of 10.73.
Chris Torpy's 2nd race of the day was heat number 3 of the 800 meter run. With some tough competition in the heat, Chris would need to keep it an honest race. He took it out hard and came thru with the fastest time of all the prelims - winning his heat in 1:52.77.
Capping off an amazing senior year where he started the season re-habbing from his 2nd ACL surgery in December, Jibreel Brown ran an inspired 400 meter race in heat no. 3. His time of 48.73 was a new Sandburg school record, but unfortunately he just missed qualifying for the finals by one place.
We had two runners in the 1600 meter run. In prelim heat no. 1, Dylan Jacobs took it out very hard and then hung on in the last 200, running 4:17.54 and finish third in his heat. Heat number 2 featured Sean Torpy and he took it out easy and then cruised to a second place finish in 4:16.82. Both of our runners qualified comfortably for Saturday's final.
In our last event of the day, Ayo Abiona raced in his final event of the day - the 200 meter dash. He ended up with the 10th fastest time in the prelims, just missing the finals with a time of 22.36.
Friday night we felt pretty good about our results. The 4x800 looked very good and Chris, Sean and Dylan all ran solid in their individual events. We also had David Gleisner ready for the 3200 meter final. And Ayo looked good for scoring points in both the 100 and the long jump. We were optimistic that we might be able to score enough to be in the hunt for a trophy on Saturday!
Saturday's weather once again threw a wrench into everyone's plans. Fear of storms led the powers that be to declare that we'd follow a rolling schedule for the finals. Once again, our guys would use their experience to deal with any obstacles placed in their way.
With great anticipation, the 3A boys 4 x 800 meter relay teams charged on to the track. Tommy Brennan once again handled the lead off duties. Oak Park-River Forest shot out to a big lead, but Brennan didn't panic and led the chase pack around with a 1:56.9 leg before handing off. Dylan Jacobs took the baton and continued to follow OPRF. His 1:56.3 split maintained 2nd place, but still trailed the Huskies by about 4 seconds. Sean Torpy took the handoff for the 3rd leg, and immediately set out to chase down the leader. On the second lap, he simply destroyed the field and turned a 4 second deficit into an almost 5 second lead with a 1:51.00 split - incredible! Chris Torpy took the baton from his twin brother and kept the pressure on. At this point, the main question was - does the State record get broken? Chris finished off the race with a 1:52.6 anchor leg and the Sandburg jersey crossed the line in a new State record time of 7:37.36 - winning by over 7 seconds and knocking almost 3 seconds off the ten year old Jacobs record.
Ayo Abiona was unable to improve his on his prelim long jump of 22 ft. 11.75 inches, but still hung on to 3rd place and 7 big team points! This was huge for the Sandburg Eagles.
In the 100 meter dash final, Ayo raced to a 7th place finish in 10.83 to grab 3 more team points.
The Eagles had two more events to go. Appropriately, our shot at a trophy would ride on the broad shoulders of Sean and Chris Torpy, along with Dylan Jacobs.
First up was Chris Torpy in the 800 meter run. Doubling back from the 4 x 800 relay and with a shorter rest due to the rolling schedule, Chris was facing a field of runners that had skipped other events to solely focus on winning the 800. There's no coasting in the 800, and the pack went out quickly. Chris took the lead at the end of the first lap with a 55.5 second split. From there, he simply took off, quickly losing most of the other runners. John Partee tried to hang with Chris and paid for it down the stretch. Chris kept pulling away and ran a negative split with a second lap in 54.2 to finish as State Champ in 1:50.8.
Our final event of the day would be the 1600 meter run, with both Sean Torpy and Dylan Jacobs running in the final - both doubling back from the 4 x 8 relay. Last year, in the same situation, Sean simply ran out of gas. But a year later, as a senior, he was determined to not let that happen again. He ran thru the half in 2:11 at the front of the pack, with Dylan right behind in 2:12. The 3rd lap picked up and the battle began. Sean finished lap 3 in about 4th place, and then watched Soren Knudsen and Robbie Prescott try to break open the race. Heading in to the final turn, it was a three man race, but Sean turned on the afterburners around the final curve and pulled away for a big win in 4:15.13 (57.9 last lap). Dylan Jacobs finished in 11th with a time of 4:25.64.
With 10 points in each of the 800 and 1600, the Sandburg Eagles finished the day with 40 points. After sweating out a few more events, we were finally able to celebrate with another State trophy! It was a long time coming, but well worth the wait.