BC claims its 4th title in row
Senior standouts rose to the occasion for the Burlington Central and Hampshire boys track teams Thursday night.
Dan Hagberg and Ryan Phebus, running in their fourth Big Northern Conference meet, accounted for nearly half of Burlington Central's points as the Rockets, seeded second coming in, amassed 130 team points to secure their fourth straight BNC championship. Winnebago was second with 114 and Oregon third with 90.
Hampshire also had a successful night behind the legs of senior Quinn Walker, scoring 35 points to finish sixth.
In probably the most surprising individual event, Walker unseated defending champion Hagberg in the 300-meter hurdles, winning in a school record time of 38.34. Hagberg ran a 38.40, clipping the next to last hurdle. Walker's time set a new conference record as well.
"Hagberg's like my best pal. He brings my times down," said Walker, who ran the anchor leg of Hampshire's second-place 1,600-meter relay team. "This feels nice but it's not sectionals. I gotta get ready for that now. This is a nice meet to get times down."
"Quinn ran a great race," Hagberg said. "We both had great times so you can't complain."
Burlington Central coach Mike Schmidt was beaming over his team's performance, especially in the field events, as well as his schools ability to finally host a conference meet on its new 8-lane track.
"Some of the things that make this sweet is knowing this meet was in doubt and for the kids to work so hard to pull it out … it just means a lot," Schmidt said. "It also means a lot to have this meet on our new track and to win it here. I've been working for this track for about eight years and it says a lot about the support of our administration to have this and to show it off tonight."
Prior to Hagberg, Phebus and the rest of the running Rockets sealing the deal for BC, it was an unexpected 43 points in the field events that put BC in position to win the meet.
"We were only seeded for 23 points in the field events and we scored 43," Schmidt said. "That's what really did it for us."
That field event performance was spearheaded by a conference championship in the pole vault from junior Joe Manzie, who went 13 feet, 3 inches, and a third-place finish in the event from Paco Wleklinski (12-9). Senior Dan Conran won the high jump at 5-11 for the Rockets, who won their seventh BNC title since 1995. Nate Parks was second in the high jump, also at 5-11.
The meet was in doubt until Hagberg, running the 200 for the first time outdoors in his career, took second in the event in 22.59, just behind Oregon's Jordan Thomas' 22.15.
"I didn't know what to expect in the 200," said Hagberg, who also won the 110 hurdles in a school record 13.88, which also tied the conference meet record set by BC's Dan Roby in 2001.
"That's been my goal the whole year, to get that record with Roby."
Hagberg also led off the Rockets' second-place effort in the 400 relay. Teaming with Tommy Gast, Mitch Plum and Nick Smith, they ran a 43.87. BC also won the 800 relay with Gast, Chris Leffler, Smith and T.J. Pasia clocking a 1:33.90.
Phebus was also a double-winner for BC, taking the 1,600 in 4:38.98 and the 800 in 1:59.37.
"I've never doubled up with two gold medals," Phebus said. "That really means a lot to me and it feels amazing. It definitely feels good to be the first group of seniors to win conference four times."
Central also got a third-place finish from its 3,200 relay team of Nick Laggett, Kyle Hazelton, Scott Knewitz and Phebus in a time of 8:40.38, a third from Plum in the 400 in a time of 53-flat, and a third from Pasia in the long jump.
Hampshire coach Steve Bruhn came away a happy camper as well with his team's performance. In addition to Walker winning the 300 hurdles and taking second to Hagberg in the 110s, the Whips also bettered state qualifying time in the 1,600 relay as the team of Kevin Becker, Trace Teboda, Ryan Smialek and Walker ran a 3:31.46.
Hampshire also came in just six-one hundreths of a second off of state qualifying time in the 400 relay as Joe Filippello, Smialek, Walker and Teboda clocked a 44.58 to finish third.
"We're very excited about that," Bruhn said. "We were hoping our team would come together tonight and it did."
Winnebago's Brian Benning set a conference record in the shot put with a toss of 56-01.25, bettering the 2004 throw of Johnsburg's Jason Klein (54-0). Alex Thompson of Winnebago also set a conference discus record with his throw of 185-4, breaking the 1996 mark of Oregon's Darren Moser (162-4).