Old business, new success
CHARLESTON -- The redemption is complete.
Saturday at the boys track and field state finals at Eastern Illinois University, St. Charles North's 3,200 relay of Scott Speare, Steve Miller, Max Clink and Chris DeSilva blistered O'Brien Stadium's blue track with a first-place time of 7 minutes, 45.97 seconds.
The victory laid to rest memories of 2007 when the North Stars came downstate seeded third overall in the event yet failed to make it out of Friday preliminaries.
Miller and Speare ran that day -- which was prelude to Saturday's outcome.
"Really," Miller said, "it started last year, exactly a year ago. For this entire track season we've been keeping it in our head we want to go (downstate) in the four-by-eight, we want to do well. We have the guys to do it, we surpassed our skill (of) last year. So going into it, and our training to do this, it was really a confidence thing, too.
"With these guys we got it done. We ran the race, it was the best race of my life. I just felt on fire on that track," said Miller, who after capturing the lead from Lake Forest's Andrew Dewar late in his second leg, never allowed it to slip.
Miller and Clink both scratched out of their open 800-meter berths in Friday preliminaries to stay fresh for the long relay. DeSilva fell in the 1,600 preliminaries and withdrew.
"We knew that this is the best four-by-eight that our school's ever had, and that this was the time to do it if we were going to do it," DeSilva said. "So we came out and just finally did it."
Running anchor, DeSilva battled York's Rojin Thomas early in the last leg before extending the lead with 250 meters left.
"At that point it's a state final, everything you've got," DeSilva said.
The 3,200 relay was a bounty for Kane County. Geneva took third and St. Charles East eighth.
St. Charles East leadoff man Joe Mushrush said: "We got here yesterday and we were ready to go. We didn't run our best race at all, but we snuck into the finals here. Our first goal was make it to finals, second goal was medal. And we got our second goal. It's a wonderful feeling right now, it's fantastic."
Teammates Pat Matthews, Dave Arends and Tyler Dettro came to track from other sports. They left Charleston all-staters.
"I remember last year we had a couple guys come down," said former tennis player Dettro. "They came home with medals, and I looked up to them like they were gods or something. It's just great to come back and do what we always kind of idolized."
Ex-baseball player Matthews said: "We all quit just to join track. It's definitely worth it."
Geneva's Storm Obuchowski, Drew Hickey and Andrew Nelson welcomed Chris Higgins for injured mate Drew Isbell and placed third at 7:50.26.
"Considering the circumstances," Higgins said, "third place is a victory for us."
Sixth place in shot put was a victory for Geneva's Frank Boenzi considering he's a sophomore and extended his school record with every personal best he threw to finish at 56 feet, 1 inch.
"I had more one-on-one time to focus with my coach (Gale Gross)," Boenzi said. "Just to correct my technique a little bit and look what happened."
Another sophomore, Aviance King of West Aurora, couldn't advance his preliminary high jump effort of 6 feet, 4 inches, finishing seventh. Blackhawks junior Josh Zinzer, in his second consecutive 200 dash final, ran sixth at 22.23 seconds.
"Last year I was still a little nervous coming out here, but this year it felt like I've been here before. It feels more comfortable here," Zinzer said.
That's how Geneva's Joe Augustine wants the Vikings to feel. The senior helped the Vikings to a 15th-place state finish -- East St. Louis, York and Springfield Lanphier went 1-3 -- with his sixth-place 400 dash of 49.24 seconds.
"We're taking our program to another level," Augustine said. "We're not just happy to be here anymore, we're not happy to make finals at the state meet, we're here to score points in the finals of the state meet. And we're doing a great job of it today."