Fremd’s talent rises to the top
The Fremd boys track and field team has a group of talented athletes from top to bottom.
In Friday’s Mid-Suburban League championship meet at Hoffman Estates, the Vikings showed just how deep a group they are.
Despite finishing first in only two events, Fremd was still able to win the MSL title by edging Barrington, who finished second, by a score of 105-93.
“We’re all about the team,” said Vikings coach Jim Aikens. “We tell they guys, ‘Just give us a third, a fourth, a fifth . . . whatever it takes.’ ”
It all came down to the final track event of the day, the 4 x 400 meter relay, where Vikings teammates Derrick Gaines, Jawan Gaines, Aaron Harris and Garret Groot turned on the afterburners to win in 3:26.37.
“We put our heart into everything,” said Derrick Gaines, “and our coach told us to just go out there and do what we do, and we were able to win it.”
Fremd’s Tom Mayer had the other first-place finish, becoming MSL champ in the pole vault. Other strong finishes from the Vikings came from Joshua Yamamoto (second in the 300 hurdles) and Matt Konopka (second in the 100 hurdles).
Barrington started the cold evening on a hot note as the relay team of Adam Phillips, Tyler Anderson, Ryan Perkins and Konrad Eiring triumphed in the 4 x 800 in 7:56.01.
“I cruised to 500,” said Eiring, a sophomore who ran the anchor leg. “Usually I go out fast and try to catch whoever’s in front of me, but we’ve been working on waiting, and I was able to overtake him (the anchor runner from Hersey) down the stretch.
“This is a good feeling,” added Eiring, “but a weird feeling at the same time. I knew all the workouts that I’ve been putting in would start to pay off sometime.”
In other field events, Ed Beyer of the Huskies won the discus; Pat Costello of Prospect was first in the shot put; while Parker Deloye of Barrington jumped 6-5 to win the high jump.
Broncos sophomore Scott Miller earned the title of the fastest man in the MSL by winning the 100 dash in 11.04.
“I’m so happy,” said Miller. “I saw the Schaumburg kid (runner up Jan Dimaano) had the lead at the halftime point but I was able to take control from there, and I just kept going.
“I was confident coming in, but I didn’t know I could win it like this.”
Elk Grove sophomore Paul Ifianayi won the 200 dash and the 400, the latter in the time of 50.14.
Joe Sulentic of Conant ran a blazing final 200 meters to win the 1,600 in a time of 4:23.15 in a race where the top three finishers were separated by less than six-tenths of a second.
Dave Kendziera of Prospect was the most outstanding individual at the meet; winning the 300 meter low hurdles, the long jump and the 110 meter high hurdles.
The Schaumburg relay team of Jan Dimaano, Stacey Smith, Shandall Thomas and Tom Ciupka took the 4 x 100, Nick Bernardo of Buffalo Grove was the winner of the 800, and the 4 x 200 relay was won by Barrington (Parker Deloye, JP Brooks, Miller and Brandon Melynchuk).
In the 3,200, senior Quentin Schaeffer from Prospect was staring at the back of Zach Dale of Conant for most of the final lap before catching, Dale, who finished second, near the end for the victory.
“He (Dale) is a very talented kid,” said Schaeffer, “and he finishes very well — but at that point, I knew I had some legs left, and I was able to run him down.”