Boys track: Neuqua Valley athletes going off to warmer weather

Temperatures in DuPage County on Friday and Saturday are projected to be in the high 30s and low 40s, respectively, according to Weather.com.

More than a dozen Neuqua Valley boys track athletes and Hinsdale Central's Blake Evertsen will enjoy a climate 30 degrees warmer at the 49th Arcadia Invitational in California. Recording qualifying times in their events allows the Illinoisans the opportunity - at their expense - to participate in the nation's largest track meet sponsored and run by a high school.

"First of all, we want to get some really, really elite competition for our guys, especially our top guys, because they're going to set the tone for what our season will be," said Neuqua coach Mike Kennedy, who took five athletes to Arcadia last year. He first had a Wildcat there in 2008 when Chris Derrick set the meet's 5,000-meter record at 13 minutes, 55.96 seconds.

Kennedy added top competition is available locally, "but the weather is trouble."

"This is a fun trip," he said. "It definitely makes it feel more exciting when the kids get to earn a trip across the country and compete against someone else. That's a fun thing that the kids like to do."

Senior Connor Horn and junior Isaiah Robinson will return to the invite, each running an open event as well as a relay. Both of them medaled in their events there in 2015, as did Nebraska freshmen Ty Moss and Kyle Bender and Stanford freshman Zac Espinosa.

Neuqua's contingent this year also includes sprinters Myles Gascon, Dan Gaynes, Chris Muoghalu, Kevin Sager and JaQuere Williams; and middle-distance and distance runners Scott Anderson, Aidan Livingston, Ryan Lukas, Jake McEneaney, Patrick Wolak, and Kennedy's sophomore son, Ryan.

All in all, it's 13 Wildcats in 10 events plus Mike Kennedy and distance coach Paul Vandersteen.

"What we've found when we go there is our athletes, they rise to the competition," Mike Kennedy said.

That's what Hinsdale Central coach Noah Lawrence hopes will happen with distance runner Blake Evertsen.

Last year as a sophomore Evertsen ran in Arcadia's "Rising Stars" 1-mile, finishing in 4 minutes, 23.30 seconds. He also ran in a heat of the 3,200-meter run, running a time of 9:14.39 that set the Red Devils' sophomore mark. (Evertsen also owns Hinsdale Central's sophomore 1,600 outdoor record, 4:19.7.)

With Evertsen running in the fast heat at Arcadia, Lawrence looks forward to seeing if he can eclipse the program 3,200 outdoor record of 9:06.6 set by John Thanos in 1983.

"If all goes well," Lawrence said, "he hopes to break the nine-minute barrier. Most of all, he wants to run competitively against some of the best prep distance athletes in the country."

Hope is the effective word here. Asked if he had any expectations for his athletes at Arcadia, Kennedy said he did not.

"You go out, try your best and everything will fall into place," the Neuqua coach said. "But that's what I tell them at every meet."