Neuqua wins 6th straight UEC indoor title
Make no mistake about it, the Neuqua Valley boys track team is for real, and they weren't about to wait until the outdoor season to flex their muscles.
The Wildcats won their sixth straight Upstate Eight Conference indoor title at St. Charles East, finishing the night with 162 points, and outscoring their nearest competitor by nearly 80. Neuqua won 10 of the 16 events and placed second in three.
Lake Park was second with 83 points, Waubonsie Valley third with 82, and St. Charles North was fourth with 65.
Junior Aaron Beattie won the 3,200 in 9:41, shaving seven seconds off of his early season best so far. Beattie said while some teams might look at the indoor season as merely more training before the outdoor season, the Wildcats' goal is to compete each and every meet.
"We get a huge team out every year, so that just builds competition," Beattie said. "Even though it's only indoor season and our huge focus is outdoor season, we still like to put guys in to compete."
Senior Brandon Boyce entered as the second seed in the 55-meter run, and remained ranked there after the preliminaries, but he was able to find an extra gear in the finals to win the even in 6.64 seconds.
"I just like racing against good competition because it just makes you run faster," Boyce said. "Our focus was to win conference tonight, and then for outdoor we've got to turn it on and try to earn state medals."
Neuqua Valley coach Mike Kennedy said regardless of the time of the season, his team desires to be the best every time out.
"This was an incredible team effort," Kennedy said. "A lot of our guys have risen to the challenge and they're showing it tonight that they all want to be at that top level. Nobody wants to settle for second best, and they've worked very hard to get to this point."
Junior Jamere Morrison won the 200, Cale Brown won the 400, Kevin Long won both the low and high hurdles, and Sam Wildeman won the pole vault.
Senior Dan Block from Lake Park set a new meet record in the shot put, winning the event with a toss of 63 feet, 10 inches.
Ricky Walls won the triple jump and Emmett Lorenz won the 1,600 for Waubonsie Valley.
Steve Miller won the 800 and Andrew Carlson won the high jump for St. Charles North.
Bartlett's Dan Karys won the long jump and placed second in the triple jump.