The Open racers got things started. Jackson Fornek took it out hard, followed closely by Will Kupczyk. The two of them battled back and forth throughout the rest of the race with Will eventually gaining the upper hand and finishing 6th overall in 17:43. Jackson was right. behind in 7th place in 17:46. Owen Harty pushed the last mile of the race to close in 18:19, good for 17th place. Next up was Arvind Sandhu in 39th (19:18), Ben Meyer in 43rd (19:23) and Matteo Lugo in 44th (19:23). Nick Charles was our 7th man, running 20:11 for 60th place. Overall, the guys grabbed the 3rd place trophy with 80 points - behind Downers Grove South (28) and Lyons Township (37).
Next up was the Varsity race and the boys did not disappoint. Declan Tunney, Brock Rice and Sean Marquardt formed an early trio near the front. Down the final straight, Declan's finish kick almost pulled out the win. His 2nd place time was 15:26. Brock pulled away for 3rd in 15:35. Sean ran a great race and battled to a top ten finish, taking 9th place in 15:53. Trent Anderson came thru in 15th place (16:14) and Ibrahim Tineh closed out our scoring in 25th with a time of 16:55. Evan Diemling, running in his first big invite, was our 6th finisher in 17:34 (44th place) and Jonathon Vales placed 61st (18:21).
Final team scores showed the Eagles in first place with 50 points, followed by Downers Grove South (84), Lyons Township (89), Maine South (100) and Riverside-Brookfield (118). Not a bad way to kickoff the 2021 season!
Third race of the day saw our freshmen toeing the starting line. We had nice pack of three battling near the front of the race. In the end, Luke Atzman finished as our leader in 13th place with a time of 12:58 for the 2.24 mile course. Damian Martinez was next in 16th place in 13:06. Matt Coleman followed in 19th place (13:13). James Coppinger was our fourth finisher in 14:30 - good for 47th place. Connor Wholley was right behind in 48th (14:36). Jack Easterhouse finished 58th (15:22) and Alex Van Alst was 60th (15:34). The team ended up in 5th place with 131 points. Not a bad start for the frosh, but with room for improvement.
In the final race of the day, Grant Giblin ran away from the field to take the win in 16:19. The Eagle only had 4 finishers in the sophomore race, so they did not factor into the team scoring.
I'm super excited about the potential this team has for 2021 - and beyond! We're off to a good start. Now it's on to Reavis.