Record-setting night
St. Charles North's Chris DeSilva had to leave Thursday's Upstate Eight Conference boys track meet early to blow his trumpet at a school jazz concert.
He saved time to blow away the competition before he left.
Running on his home track at St. Charles North, DeSilva set a new school record in the 3,200-meter run, his time of 9 minutes, 12.52 seconds paring about 5 seconds off the old mark.
One of the great things about it -- and about the sport of track and field, really -- was he had help from an opponent.
Neuqua Valley's Jimmy Riddle, who has gone 9:11 in the 3,200 this year, set the pace for DeSilva, not normally a two-mile man. DeSilva took over late for the win.
"I talked to Riddle," DeSilva said. "Our school record's 9:17, so I told him I was going to try to go out and break it. I just raced for it, and we got it."
DeSilva thanked the Neuqua senior, Riddle.
"He led the whole race. He's a two-miler, he knows the pace."
DeSilva joined Andrew Carlson as a new school record holder for the North Stars, who finished third with 65 points, behind Waubonsie Valley (146) and Neuqua Valley (114).
Carlson doubled up on his UEC indoor win by going 6 feet, 4 inches outdoors on Thursday. It was a long time coming.
"I was stuck at 6-2 for awhile," said Carlson, who topped the 6-3 of Eric Brown.
"I hit that the second meet outdoors and I was kind of stuck and kind of going through a down. I wasn't doing as well as I had been. Today was the best I've done in a long time."
St. Charles East's Keenen Sellers, coming off a hamstring tweak last week at the Kane County Meet, helped the Saints to a fifth-place finish behind East Aurora, with his victory in the 100-meter dash and a third in the 200.
Late in the meet, he was caught up by the team success.
"Even after the 100," he said, "I didn't really care. I wanted to go find Kuebel."
As in Tom Kuebel, the surprise winner of the 110-meter hurdles.
He came into the meet with the seventh-fastest seed time. After a disqualification in preliminaries and two false starts in the final heat, Kuebel crossed the line in 15.58 seconds. And he just kept going.
"I like sprinted, started screaming," said Kuebel, who credited teammate Joe Vitali and former Saint Travis Nier for their help.
"I ended up getting clotheslined by this yellow fence, and just hopping, and everyone was going nuts. I think I was seeded seventh, so I just couldn't believe it when I won. It was a ton of fun."