Huntley nabs 3,200 relay title at 76th Palatine meet
As he walked to the podium to accept the G.A McElroy award as the male athlete of the meet, Palatine senior Tim Williams already had the look of a star.
Dressed in his gray-hooded sweatshirt with four medals around his neck, Williams also sported dark sunglasses with giant silver stars on each side. It was a rather appropriate look considering Williams was the biggest star for the Pirates at the 76th annual Palatine Relays Saturday at Chic Anderson Field.
With wins in three events and a runner-up finish in another, Williams helped the Pirates to a record-setting day as they earned the team title with 142 points. Belleville East ran second (65 just ahead of Conant (64) and Barrington (61).
"(Friday night) we had a meeting with the coaches and they talked to us about the tradition and history of this meet," Williams said. "I was really psyched up and I wanted to do this for all the others that have raced here at Palatine in this meet."
Williams was dominant in all four events he participated in. He had the top jumps in the long jump (23-4) and the triple jump (46-7.5). On the track, wins in the 100 and 200-meter dashes gave the Pirates a huge boost.
"We talked to (Tim) earlier in the week about needing him in all four events," Palatine coach John Nalley said. "He said he wanted to be the MVP so he was ready for this."
Huntley, led by the team of Casey Popenfoose, Justin Cassidy, Sal Torrison and Todd Farbiak won the 3,200-meter relay in 8:14.0. The same group minus Torrison and plus Josh Sivila ran a solid 3:28.2 in a second place finish in the 1,600-relay.
Other area winners included Tim Constant of Jacobs in the 400-meter dash (50.5) and Billy TenBusch of Prairie Ridge in the 3,200-meter run (9:47.9). The Wolves also won the team discus event.
As a team, Palatine scored in all 21 events -- something it had never done in the previous 75 Palatine Relays. The Pirates earned relay wins in the frosh/soph 800-Meter Medley relay, and in the 1,600-meter relay. Individually, besides the two wins for Williams, Mat Smoody captured to event wins.
Smoody cruised in the 800-mete run winning in 1:56.3. Barrington's Ryan Mangone ran a season best 1:58.2 in a second place finish just edging out Farbiak (1:58.3) and Garrett McKnight of St. Francis (1:58.5).
Later, Smoody made a furious comeback to edge out Jeff Thode of Conant in the 1,600-meter run. Griff Graves of Abingdon, Virginia won the event, but because he ran as an exhibition, Smoody's second place finish was good enough for first.
"Scoring in 21 events is just incredible," Nalley said. "These seniors on this team have talked about leaving their mark and with this type of performance, they have done that."
Barrington also found ways to get into the record books Saturday. The Broncos have been dominant at the Palatine Relays in the jumping events for some time and the group of Sam Ojuri, Kevin Crowley and Steve Munoz continued that tradition.
Led by jumps of 22-3 from Ojuri and 22-0 from Crowley, the Broncos matched the meet record set by Bolingbrook in 2005.
"It was a good day for the guys," Barrington coach Todd Kuklinski said. "They all came out and competed, which was what we really were looking for."
Lakes senior Jon DeGrave got his chance to compete against the best competition he has seen to this point, and DeGrave was more than ready for it. In the 300 Intermediate hurdles, DeGrave held off Kyle Reid of Conant to win in 39.7. Reid was second in 39.9.
DeGrave and Andrew Stein led the Eagles triple jump relay to a second place finish with a combined jump of 122-0.5.
Grayslake North senior Nick Lane also stepped up in competition and met the challenge in the 1,600. Lane ran to a third place finish in a school-record effort of 4:27.3.
"Last year motivated me a lot after getting down state," said Lane who will run at Wisconsin-Milwaukee next fall. "I have been really training hard both to get back down state and to run in college next year."
Fremd senior John Wood was just happy to get a chance to compete in the pole vault. After missing most of the outdoor season with a bad back, Wood got up on a new pole on Saturday and made the most of it. His career-best vault of 14-9 was enough to lift the Vikings to a team win in the event.
Fremd also won the shot put with a combined team toss of 145-10.