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Benet's Hubona lets the discus fly

It wasn't a Tuesday but Stephen Hubona zinged one out there nonetheless.

The Benet senior unwound his quick, tight spin and slung the discus far down the sector, 177 feet, 1 inch, more than 30 feet past his closest competitor at the 12th annual Mike Yavorski Hornet Invite on Friday at Hinsdale South in Darien.

Seventh in Class 2A discus last year and the Redwings' record holder in the event, Hubona came off a Tuesday throw of 186 feet, 5 inches. Backed by the Dyestat website, Benet throws coach Tim Cedarblad said entering Friday that was Illinois' top throw and 12th best in the nation.

"It's what I've been working towards for this whole time," said Hubona, a Loyola recruit. "My ultimate goal is to get up towards 200. Winning state would be fantastic."

A couple Tuesdays ago Hubona went 175 feet; the Tuesday before that he threw the disc 169. Add Friday's 177-footer, plus a winning shot put of 49-4 to surpass Hinsdale South's Antonas Riskus and Benet teammate Sean O'Conner, and things are coming around.

"I think this is just about the time that practice really starts to kick in and you finally get to get back into the flow of things and figure out what's going wrong and correct it," said Hubona, who widened his stance to add speed to his spin and energy upon release.

Hubona, O'Conner, high jump winner Max Zinski and distance runners Sean Harnik and John Stoppleman helped Benet to a third-place finish at the Yavorski.

Bloomington - whose coach, John Szabo, started as a Hinsdale South teacher's aide and assisted Yavorski in track - won the meet with 145 points. The hosts finished second with 109.50 points followed by Benet (83), Glenbard East (82), Riverside-Brookfield (73), Montini (48) and Lemont (7).

Maybe it's because Glenbard East coach Jack Brady is retiring, but his words create results. Brady said, "We need a win," and senior Vince Booth promptly obliged, taking the 800-meter run in 2 minutes, 1.9 seconds.

"I'm just trying to run smart," said Booth, also trying to bounce back from a sinus infection during indoor season. Joining Booth in the winner's circle for the Rams were 1,600 winner Jack Peters - who outlasted Hinsdale South's game Charlie Nodus - and the 3,200 relay team of Pat Mikel, Josh Schaefer, Davarus Jones and Peters.

Booth hopes to qualify individually in the 800, and after that he'll run and study finance at New York University. Another whiz kid, Hinsdale South's Jack Czajkowski, will study mechanical engineering at Illinois and would like to walk on in track.

Friday the Hornets' Marcus Melancon and Czajkowski finished 2-3 in the 400 while sophomore Dylan Boye won long jump at 20 feet, 7ΒΌ inches. Those three plus track newcomer Ontario Washington look to reprise a 2013 state-qualifying 1,600 relay.

"Hopefully we can repeat in the four-by-four and hopefully add a four-by-one, four-by-two to that," Czajkowski said. "We have a pretty good shot right now, looking time-wise, but everyone's just got to get healthy, that's the thing."

Montini needs seasoning. Runners like Michael Hollingshead, Mitch West, Brannon Sickels and Tony Maduzia, hurdler Malcolm Pitchford and jumper Matt Fisch, second in triple jump, form a nice core for first-year Broncos coach Eric Brechtel.

"Next week (at the DuPage County Meet) will be fun because we get to run against some really good teams and kind of see how we stack up against some of the best teams in the state and see how our kids handle that type of competition," Brechtel said.

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