Glenbard South leaves field behind
Nick Boesso didn’t want to think ahead to what he and his Glenbard South teammates might accomplish at the Class 2A boys state track meet in Charleston, preferring the cautious approach.
“Nothing really is guaranteed, so we just need to work at it like we work at anything else,” the senior said Friday night. “It really starts in practice. We’re excited for practice Monday.”
Torey Fobbs still was savoring his first-place finish at the Lisle sectional at Benedictine University, not thinking about next weekend’s road trip.
“It feels good,” Fobbs said. “I’m speechless. The first time.”
But Raiders coach Andy Preuss knows his track math.
“I’m excited going into it. It’ll be fun. I think we’re going to have our best meet of the year, and I think we’re going to get a trophy down there,” Preuss said, meaning a top-three finish behind favored Cahokia. “Everybody’s in a real good place right now.”
The Raiders are well on their way, qualifying for state in numbers after running away with the sectional team championship. Glenbard South scored 173 points. Walther Lutheran was a distant second with 66, and Benet took third with 59 points. Montini’s 38 points gave the Broncos fifth place behind Riverside-Brookfield.
The Raiders started by winning the 3,200 relay, with Jake Sundberg, Peter Jaeger, Scott Wurtz and John Wold finishing in 8:04.81. The Raiders also won the 400 relay and the 800 relay, with only the 1,600 relay failing to qualify.
Wesley Sanders won both the 100 and 200 dashes for the Raiders, and Wurtz won the 1,600 in 4:27.37, coming from behind to defeat Riverside-Brookfield’s Travis Trevizo in the final 100 meters just like he did in the 800 last week at the Metro Suburban Conference meet.
This time the 800 title went to Wold, who also had to come from behind after getting boxed in early. Battling illness, Wold moved up to third place, trailing Trevizo by a good 20 meters with 300 to go. The Glenbard South sophomore caught up, though, taking the lead with about 40 meters left, winning in 1:57.10 to Trevizo’s 1:57.43.
The Raiders also swept the weight events, with Boesso winning the discus and placing second to school record-holder Fobbs in the shot put.
“Me and Nick, we’re hoping to get some huge points in shot put and disc,” Fobbs said.
Boesso placed seventh last year in the shot put.
“The field’s a lot more tough this year than last year, so I’m just going to take anything I can get,” he said.
The event of the day for Benet was the final event, the 1,600 relay won by Eddie Moline, Austin Dzik, Michael Lang and Brian Durkin in 3:26.64.
“They PR’d by four seconds, so each one of them dropped their time by about a second or so, which, I mean, it’s incredible,” Benet coach Pat Marshall said. “They know they wanted to qualify. We weren’t sure how they would finish. They were second or third with their time, and to come out and win, I couldn’t be more happy. We have two seniors on there and two juniors that almost went down in other events, so to have them go down in the 4-by-4 is really special.”
The Redwings’ 3,200 relay placed second to qualify, as did Anton Vershay in the 3,200 run.
“It was an exciting day,” Marshall said.
Montini got a win in the pole vault, where Pat Barrett cleared 13 feet, 6 inches.
Wheaton Academy’s Matt Ruff won the 400 in 51.27.
“It was a great race,” Ruff said. “I know it wasn’t my best race, but I tried to give it my all.”