Spivey finally has a fun run
It was Sebastian Spivey's first competition in five years.
Due to a litany of ailments the eldest son of Fenton graduate and three-time Olympian Jim Spivey and his wife, Cathy, hadn't run in a track meet since Sebastian was a seventh-grader in Kentucky.
At Saturday's 40th annual Peterson Prep Invitational at Kaneland, "Seb" made his high school debut. The lanky Wheaton Academy senior ran 400 meters in 56.15 seconds and anchored the Warriors' 1,600 relay.
His thoughts?
"It's pretty hard," he said. "In seventh grade I ran a 5:03 (mile). I was moving in seventh grade, and I haven't improved at all. But it's fun to be out here, it's fun to run."
It meant enough to have Spivey running that with only a slight break during the 200-meter dash, junior Mike DeRenzo followed his own 1,600 with the first leg of the 1,600 relay.
"That's the main reason I ran this," said DeRenzo, just coming back from strep throat. "I wouldn't have, but this is his first meet and he really wanted to get a second event in. I did it so he could get that feeling."
To quote from Irene Cara, what a feeling.
"It's fun to be on the team," said Spivey, whose freshman brother, Sammy, ran the 800 in 2:19.58. "We've got nice coaches and they respect us a lot, so it's definitely fun to be on the team."
Seeing the Spiveys - parents and children - was a thrill to Fenton coach John Kurtz, the Hall of Famer who helped take Jim Spivey from a decent gym class mile to four all-state honors in track and cross country.
"It was kind of like a reunion," Kurtz said.
It was kind of like a resurgence for the Bison's Francisco Ochoa. The senior placed fifth in both discus and shot put.
"We were looking for him to have a breakout meet to get going," Kurtz said, "and he had that."
At the 2008 Peterson Prep, Driscoll junior Pierre Washington-Steel stuck around long enough to qualify in the 100 dash before sprinting to a football combine.
Saturday he stayed and finished behind only West Aurora speedster Josh Zinzer. Washington-Steel ran a fully automated time of 11.25 seconds to Zinzer's 10.93.
"In the first race, my prelim, I took second and I didn't think I ran that well," Washington-Steel said. "So I tried to come out in the finals and tried to place, and I took second."
Washington-Steel also joined John Schiller, Jeremy Wilk and Joey Calabrese - who nailed a personal-best long jump of 19 feet, 2 inches - in a solid 400 relay. Wilk took third in the 800.
Kaneland won its own meet with 83 points, just a half-point ahead of West Aurora. Defending champ Geneva finished third with 80 and Dundee-Crown fourth at 73.