Mangone's cannon shot sparks Barrington
Barrington senior Ryan Mangone showed Thursday night at the 38th running of the Patriot Relays that he simply hates to lose.
Not that this should come as any kind of surprise considering Mangone is a returning state medalist and seems to win more races than he loses. So when Mangone took the baton on the final leg of the Broncos' 1,600-meter relay in third place, it came as no surprise that Mangone quickly moved to the front of the pack.
"It was as if he was shot out of a cannon," said Barrington coach Todd Kuklinski.
The shot heard round the Stevenson track was Mangone coming from a distant third to pass the lead group before the runners hit the 100-meter mark and then running away from the rest of the pack. His blistering 49.4 anchor leg lifted the Broncos to a win in 3:28.1. Billy Odell, Kevin Crowley and Eric Schneider joined Mangone on the winning relay.
The win also capped an impressive night for a Broncos team that ran minus two key performers - Sam Ojuri and Terrance Terry. Barrington won nine events en route to winning the Patriot relays with 128 points. Lake Zurich, which captured four event titles, was second with 110 points - followed by Warren (86), the host Patriots (80) and Cary Grove (40).
"We have really been blessed since I have been here to have as many great quarter-milers as we have had," Kuklinski said. "Tonight we were minus two of our key guys and plenty of other guys stepped up for us."
Other Broncos' first places in the relay-style formatted meet included wins in both hurdles events, the long and triple jump relays and the distance medley relay.
Calling his team's performance "gutsy," Lake Zurich coach Chad Beaver had nothing but praise for his young Bears, who have been very sprint-strong over the past few years but showed signs of a nice sprinting future with wins in the 400- and 800-meter relays. The same team of Jacob Brinlee, Colin Wanat, Dan Randolph and Christian Williams won the two sprint relays - both times edging Warren at the finish line.
The 400 relay team won in a season-best effort of 44.1. The 800-relay team led from start to finish before edging Warren at the line to win in 1:32.3.
"I told the kids after the meet that this was the gutsiest performance we have had all year," Beaver said. "Every time we get to race against a team like Barrington, our kids get fired up because they we have so much respect for Barrington."
Warren captured its lone event win in the long jump relay led by juniors Trevor Raupp and Jake Jerowicz. Senior Karsen Greene ran a solid second in the 1,600-meter run, finishing with a season-best 4:28.5. The relay team of Leonard Brady, Chet Michna, Raupp and Kyle Ward made up the runner-up sprint relay team.
The team of Dan Jacquier, Eddie Gibbons, Ryan Gustafson and Phil Farleigh started the meet with a bang, winning the 3,200-relay in 8:16.3 just ahead of Lake Zurich (8:20.4). Farleigh came back later and broke away from the pack in the 1,600-meter run to win the event in a season-best 4:26.5.
"I think tonight had a lot of things to be positive about," Holter said. "I thought in the mile, the pace came through kind of slow and Phil just broke from the pack and ran a nice race."
"I ended up getting boxed in to start the race," Farleigh added. "With the pace being so much slower than I thought it would be, I knew I had to break out and I ran my race from there."
Grant finished sixth in the team race, but captured the discus relay led by Mike Zielinski. His best effort of 148-3 led the Bulldogs to the relay event win.