St. Peter's teams compete at IESA state track/field championship
By the time the last race was completed at noon last Saturday, the St. Peter track and field team could look back on arguably one of the most exciting and successful weekends of competition in recent history. In the end, three school records were broken, one athlete earned a medal at state, and the team had their most competitive conference meet of the season.
Girls eighth-grade high jump was one of the opening field events at the Illinois Elementary School Association State Track and Field Championship Meet at the Eastside Centre in East Peoria on Friday morning. St. Peter's Mary Tork was the second jumper to compete in the second and most competitive flight of the competition. On a beautiful, warm and calm day for high jumping, Tork, along with most of the athletes in her flight, made it through 4 feet 7 inches unscathed. The real competition began at 4 feet 9 inches. At this height, the jumping became less consistent and many including Tork missed on their first attempt. Never one to give up, Tork made a beautiful jump on her second try and remained in the competition with medal contention now a real possibility. The next height of 4 feet 11 inches would be a challenge as her best height thus far was 4 feet 10 inches achieved in 2016. Although knocking the bar off, Tork's first two attempts were solid jumps. The third time was a charm as she soared over the bar now with a medal guaranteed and a new St. Peter School record. Five feet was just too much for Tork and she left the competition with a sixth place all state medal. She was the first ever St. Peter athlete to medal in any field event at the state meet.
Saturday morning was the eighth-grade boys turn as they brought their record-breaking 4x200-meter relay team to East Peoria to compete against some very tough competition at the state meet. Once again in ideal track weather and in lane two of the third of four heats, the boys were off to a good start with Eric Ford doing his best to stay with the field. Joe Drew and Tommy Rittenhouse held the team's position with solid runs and good exchanges while anchor Josh Caceres tore through the last leg of the relay with a split time of under 25 seconds. The team placed 17th and for the third time in 2017 set another St. Peter School record with a time of 1:46.17.
While the boys were running at state, the rest of the team was in conference action at Mooseheart, including Mary Tork who came back to run and jump for the team. Little did they know that yet another school record would fall.
Eighth-grader Ben Robertson has been a middle distance specialist and long jumper for four years at St. Peter. On a whim, he decided to try triple jump in practice. Seeing a special talent unfolding the coaches decided to enter Robertson into triple jump and the rest is now history. In his first ever triple jump competition, Robertson jumped 30 feet 4 inches to win triple jump and break a long-standing St. Peter School record that hadn't been touched since 2011.
The team overall had great success at Mooseheart placing second among the larger schools behind winner Holy Angels. They'll carry that momentum into next Saturday's Aurora Catholic Conference Championship meet at Aurora Central Catholic High School.
There, the team will challenge perennial top contenders Holy Angels, Annunciation and St. Rita from Aurora as well as the newly successful team from Holy Cross in Batavia.