As coaches, one of our jobs is to make sure these guys stay focused and motivated. They need to be challenged. So this past week we asked them to come back victorious at both the Peoria Central Invite, as well as the St. Charles North Invitational.
After much discussion, it was decided that we'd split the varsity squad and send Sean Torpy and Dylan Jacobs, our top two finishers from the Peoria Notre Dame meet, to the St. Charles Invite. They would be matched against a couple of very good teams from St. Charles East and Marmion Academy.
Coach O'Malley and I were in charge of the group heading to Peoria. Since our race was starting a little bit later, Coach Jonaitis volunteered to broadcast part of the St. Charles races via the Periscope app. We gathered the team around and watched as Sean and Dylan took it out hard at St. Charles. They knew that Filip Pajak from Prairie Ridge was running very well, and so they put the hammer down early and opened up a gap.
They kept the pressure on and Sean Torpy eventually prevailed for the win in 15:06. Less than two seconds behind, sophomore Dylan Jacobs crossed in second in 15:08. Great job by these two. Battling a little ways back, Paul Sieczkowski ran a fantastic race, finishing in 13th in 16:04. Next up was junior Alex Szymanski in 22nd place in 16:10, with Patrick Foster running 16:15 for 29th place. Anthony LiFonti also ran well with a time of 16:19 and 33rd place. Junior Tom Marchese closed out the Varsity with his 92nd place finish in 17:09.
Overall, the Eagles captured the championship with 67 points. St. Charles East followed with 76 and Marmion Academy finished in third with 97.
Our inside box at PCI gave us a chance to practice our race strategy for our Detweiller start. This crew just likes to get out fast, so we made it clear that they needed to be near the front at the first turn. They executed this to perfection and at the 800, we had our entire group of 7 in the lead pack. By the mile, with Dan Laskero showing the way, it was easy to see that the Eagles were leading this race. The entire Sandburg pack flashed by between 4:41 and 4:43.
In to the North Loop, Max Lehnhardt made his planned move to shake things up a bit. He pushed himself into the lead and the rest of the group started to string out a bit. With Max crossing the 2 mile mats with about a 4 second lead, the Eagles where still looking strong. Over the last mile they held their own against the competition. In the end, Keagan Smith from Huntley moved up to win in 14:26. Max held on for 2nd (or maybe not? - the results were not clear) in 14:37 (7th fastest in school history). Chris Torpy, coming back from a short layoff, finished in 4th with a new PR of 14:42 (8th best in school history). Tom Brennan placed 5th in 14:45 (10th best ever), Martin Skucas was right behind in 6th in 14:47 (12th best), Dan Laskero was 11th in 14:51 (18th best all-time) and Brandon Lukas was 11th in 14:54 (20th best). All six guys ran PR's. Seventh man David Gleisner placed a solid 27th with a time of 15:12 - just off his PR.
Overall, the Eagles scored a low 26 points, with Lyons following in 2nd with 67 and Neuqua Valley 3rd with 97. The overall 5-man time of 73:43 (average of 14:44.6) broke the school record of 73:45 set two weeks earlier at PND.
Two huge Varsity team championships in one day! It was nice to get a chance for more of the guys to shine and for them to be able to show off that Sandburg depth. We now have 8 runners that have run sub-14:55 on the Detweiller course the the last two weeks. Very exciting stuff! I can't wait to see what these guys can accomplish the rest of the way.