Glenbard West relay breaks school record
The goal sounded so innocent.
"We just want to run faster," Glenbard West distance coach Kurt Frazier said as the West Suburban Conference Silver Division Boys Track and Field Championships got under way.
The all-senior foursome of Chris Buechner, Nate Crail, Jake Jaskowiak and Ben Hecht, the same unit that had finished 10th in Class 3A in 2014, were angling to break the 1977 school record of 7 minutes, 48 seconds in the 3,200-meter run, Saturday on their home track.
"This is something we've been looking forward to doing since last year's state (meet)," Buechner said. "We brought back everybody and we ran 7:50 last year, so we thought 48 seconds wouldn't be too out of reach."
They had won the Silver indoor title at 7:54.62. They had set one home meet record, May 2 at the Jim Arnold Invitational, 7:51.31.
Shortly after Hecht sang the national anthem his teammate, Buechner, grabbed the lead. After he and Oak Park's Jack Monaghan came through 800 meters at 1:57 it was Crail's turn for Glenbard West. He battled Lyons Twp.'s Ben Gawthrop, Crail running his two laps in 1:59.
"We wanted Chris' first leg to put us out in front," Crail said. "I was second, so I would just stick with the first guy and try to get a lead."
At one point running three abreast with Oak Park's Sean Lonergan and Lyons' Vince Zona, with 1,100 meters left Jaskowiak burst to a 10-meter lead.
"Whenever Nate gets the baton it's usually a pretty close race because all the '2' guys are around the same," said Jaskowiak after his split time of 1:56. "But this year I've dropped a lot of time so I just take it from third and I just try to gap as much as I can for Ben - because there's some crazy anchors out there."
Hecht, running a 1:55, spread it to 20 meters. As field announcer Bill Treece noted the record pursuit, fans rose and cheered Hecht as he sprinted the homestretch toward a conference title and school record 7:47.16, fourth fastest on the Dyestat Illinois chart.
Jim Arnold, Glenbard West's coach in 1977, saw the achievement.
"I enjoyed it very much," he said. "They're all pretty strong in that. Didn't have any weak link in there."
"This is a special place," Hecht said, "and we've got a lot of special coaches from our history. It's really an honor to be a part of our history and see how parts of our history can witness it, too."
That kicked off a third-place finish for the Hilltoppers, their 82 points 3 behind second-place York. Dominant Oak Park's 151 points snapped York's two-year hold for the Huskies' first Silver title since 2012. Downers Grove North finished sixth, Hinsdale Central seventh.
York's Alex Teague won the 100 dash in 10.85 seconds, then the 200 in 21.93, churning so hard his hip number blew off down the straightaway.
Not overjoyed since he didn't achieve personal bests, Teague has bigger fish to fry.
"Absolutely. It's not this meet that matters," he said, "it's two weeks down at state."