It was so great to be back at Detweiller Park for the State Meet on Saturday. With all the struggles that everyone had faced over the past 20 months, it felt so good to be on the bus headed back to Peoria.
Friday night, the team had gathered for our traditional State pre-meet meal at Buca di Beppo in Orland Park. Coach O'Malley had arranged for a Zoom call with some of the seniors from last year's team. Those guys had their whole year derailed by COVID and never got the chance to run in the 2020 State Meet. So this was an opportunity for the current team to thank them for all that they had persevered thru and the hard work they had done to set the table for the current team. Our guys promised to give their maximum effort for them. So thank you to last year's senior group - Ahmad Alhayek, Jacob Coleman, Indy Hauter, Griffen Lehnhardt, Michael Molloy, Tommy Sieczkowski and Ismail Tineh. We couldn't have done it without your inspiration.
Heading into this season, we knew we weren't going to be a very deep team. We had less than 40 guys on the entire team - down significantly from pre-COVID teams. But we knew we had some talent returning. Declan Tunney, Brock Rice, Trent Anderson and Grant Giblin had all qualified for the 2021 State track meet and looked really solid. Of course, you need at least 5 runners to score, so we hoped we'd have a 5th that would step forward this season. Sean Marquardt did that in a big way and showed his consistency right from the first meet of the season. As the season progressed, Ibrahim Tineh and Evan Deimling solidified themselves as the 6th and 7th runners - but we needed them to make more progress to close a big gap between the top 5 and the 6/7 guys. And of course, we needed everyone to stay healthy and injury-free. Coach O'Malley has done amazing things in fine-tuning and personalizing his training workouts to minimize injuries and was successful in limiting them again this year. And the team was very dedicated to staying healthy - eating right, sleeping well, wearing masks and generally doing whatever was needed to make it to the starting line at State feeling great!
Declan rolled thru the mile with the leaders at 4:34. Brock and Sean were next at 4:40 in 15th and 16th. Grant (4:42) and Trent (4:43) followed in the low 20's. Ibrahim crossed the mile in 4:50 (probably mid-70's) and Evan hit the line at 5:03. At this point, the Eagles held the lead over Hinsdale Central and Downers Grove North.
At the 2 mile mark, Declan came thru in 4th place at 9:29 (4:54 2nd mile). Brock and Sean were together and in great shape in 19th and 20th at 9:47 (5:06 for mile 2). Grant and Trent were starting to drift back, with both running 5:15 for the second mile. Ibrahim was still battling for position with a 5:25 2nd mile and Evan was holding his own in the mid-pack. The Eagles still held the lead in the team standings after 2 miles, with DGN up to 2nd and Hinsdale now in 3rd.
The final lap of the course called for an all out effort. Coming up the incline to the finish, you could see the strain on Declan's face. He had given everything he had and he was determined to hold off the challengers behind him. Nobody got past him and he crossed the line in 5th place overall. His time of 14:29 put him in 5th place on the All-Time Sandburg Best list. Brock and Sean were still running step for step with each other. Brock crossed first in 19th place with Sean immediately behind in 20th. Their finish time of 14:48 was a new PR for each one. And now we had 3 All Staters!!!
The team race was coming down to the 4th and 5th runners for each team. Grant Giblin pulled ahead of Trent with a final surge and crossed the line in 49th place in 15:11. He was 3 spots in front of Hinsdale's 4th man and 11 ahead of DGN's 4th. Trent had his own battle going and finished in 58th in 15:16. He was 3 spots in front of DGN's 5th and 17 ahead of HC's 5th. Great job by both of our guys!
Ibrahim Tineh ran a new personal best to finish in 15:36 in 107th place. He had made incredible progress thru the year to give us some breathing room as a solid 6th man. Evan Deimling ran a huge PR in this race with a time of 16:09 (183rd place).
When the final results were tallied, the Sandburg Eagles had captured their 2nd State championship with 130 points. Hinsdale Central moved up to grab 2nd with 175 points and Downers Grove North took the 3rd place trophy with 179.
Their 5-man composite team time for Detweiller of 74:32 ranks 4th on the All-Time Sandburg Best list - trailing only the top 3 times that the 2015 team ran at State, PCI and PND.
State champions!!!