Willowbrook's Jordan not just a good hurdler in practice
Go to practice, work on your stuff, reap the benefit.
That's Anthony Jordan's philosophy. He illustrated it Saturday at the ninth annual John Bell Invitational boys track meet at West Aurora High School.
The junior from Willowbrook exploded out of the slowest of five heats in the 300-meter hurdles to run a time that at sectionals would send him downstate - a fully automated time 39.56 seconds.
Basically running alone against two foes who finished 21st and 29th out of the 30 athletes in the event, Jordan was in the "slow" heat since he had no 300 hurdle seed time. He ran only relays last week at Wheaton North's Best Four.
Asked his strength, the Romeoville transfer said: "My strength is just practicing my hurdle drills every day, come to practice on time, practice hard. As long as I'm there doing my drills and everything, doing what I'm supposed to do, I should be fine."
Flat-out refreshing.
As was the continued success of Naperville Central's Russell Petty. He tied the meet high jump record - 6 feet, 8 inches - and missed breaking a 25-year-old Redhawks record of 6-10 by the elastic band on his shorts. Petty then edged Wheaton Warrenville South's Kevin Piraino and brother Kalen Petty in triple jump.
Solid overall, WW South got a 400-meter win by standout Kevin Credille, who returned to anchor Orlando Ross, Mike Krueger and Mack Tracey in a winning 1,600 relay.
Aaron Peck, Chris Cortopassi, Lukas Looby and Jim Franke also placed high for the Tigers, as did Downers Grove North's Ben Silver, Dan Phistry and relay runners Joe Garibay and Rob Lott.
On a day Neuqua Valley coach Mike Kennedy said he "tried a lot of experimentation," usual suspect Sam Wildeman took the pole vault at 14 feet, 3 inches. Danny Pawola surveyed his 1,600 foes on the move then won convincingly, lowering his personal best time to 4 minutes, 24.74 seconds.
Fellow Wildcat Thaddeus Johnson, ran the fastest 100-meter preliminary time then went faster to win the final in 11.43. That came shortly after Neuqua's 400 relay squad dropped the baton and was disqualified.
"You just can't let things like that get to you," Johnson said. "I'm really positive. I mean, this is a team event. And if they went down in that then I had to step up in this."
West Aurora won its second straight Bell title with 117 points, ahead of Neuqua (84) and WW South (74). Naperville Central placed sixth, Downers North seventh and Willowbrook 12th in the 16-team field.
"There were some places where we were really, really happy - and, actually, not too many places where we were even disappointed," Kennedy said. "So I think it worked out really well for us, to start planning for the end of the season."