by Bob Hahn (class of 1981)
The Sandburg XC cross country team took to Terre Haute, IN once again this post season to test its strength against the Midwest’s most powerful cross country runners. After finishing first twice in the last four years, the Eagles were determined to make their best showing possible in a year where they fielded a young team looking to gain the crucial experience needed to make another run at the Nike National meet in the next two seasons. Led by seniors Dylan Jacobs and Robbie Sieczkowski, Sandburg delivered respectable performances from all to cap off a nice season from a team perspective. And individually, All-American Jacobs punched his ticket to Oregon for the third straight year. Coming off an illness at the Illinois state championships the week before, it was touch and go whether or not DJ was going to be able to toe the line Sunday at the Lavern Gibson Championship Cross Country course at Indiana State University. So much so, that the decision was made to pull him from the team line up and run him as an individual so the Eagles would not end up short handed in the event he could not run with the team at the last second. The Sandburg top seven became Robbie Sieczkowski, Nico Calderon, Xander Furmanek, Ben Giblin, Eddie Slack, Sam Rodriguez and Ben Walter with Will Giblin as the alternate. Freshman Tommy Sieczkowski was the other Eagle representative, running the Frosh-Soph race a few hours before the main event. He turned in a solid effort, finishing in 112th place with a time of 18:07, to kick the day off and head things in the right direction.
Once again, as in recent years, the Illinois contingent of teams here in Terre Haute looked to dominate the Midwest representatives of Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois. And dominate they did. Congratulations to Downers Grove North on winning the team race and punching their ticket to Nationals where they have a strong chance to win the title. With Carmel, out of Indiana, squeaking in for the second automatic bid, the LaGrange, IL team led by Danny Kilrea ran well enough to garner huge consideration for an at large bid to the west coast. After that, Illinois piled on, taking 6 of the top seven team places, and 11 of the top 15. The Eagles finished 22nd, but if you plug Dylan’s score back into the team race, Sandburg would have finished 15th. Not too bad for a young team. With that formula, Sandburg only finished behind one team from Indiana, one team from Missouri and one team from Ohio. Again, that speaks of the strength of the Illinois teams. Also impressive was the 1-5 split of the Eagles. From Robbie Sieczkowski to Sam Rodriguez was only 27 seconds which is a strong scoring split. The race of the day for the Sandburg squad belonged to Ben Giblin as he fearlessly and tenaciously worked his way up through the field finishing as second man amongst Eagle scorers. That was the kind of racing from our underclassmen that gives great promise for the next few years at State as well as NXR. Nico Calderon and Xander Furmanek gutted it out to score 3rd and 4th for the Eagles. Behind Rodriguez was Eddie Slack and Ben Walter finishing strong and pushing the 5 scorers.
For Dylan Jacobs the day was a test of mental toughness dealing with the fringes of a lingering sickness and toned down training for 10 days preceding NXR. Working through all the hurdles leading up to race time it was determined at the last moments that he would give the race a shot. Hungry to defend his 2-time All American status and keep himself in the hunt for a chance to become a two-time national champion, DJ wanted badly to start this race, even though the outcome may have been in question. In the end, he ran a fearless, brilliant race allowing him to gap the 6th place runner comfortably so that he could cruise to the finish in 4th place and live to battle another day when his training and health should once again be at full strength. So, a nice finish to a productive season for a building Sandburg squad, and an exciting chance to watch Dylan Jacobs keep his hopes alive for a chance at an individual national title. Congratulations to Robbie Sieczkowski and Xander Furmanek on finishing off their excellent Sandburg cross country careers with a tough grinding race that exemplified their place now among proud Eagle cross country Alumni. Go Eagles!! And good luck to DJ at the upcoming Footlocker Regional, November 25th in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Click here for Race results
Tony Jones post-race interview with Dylan Jacobs
Mike Newman post-race interview with Dylan Jacobs