St. Charles North exchange student Ilunga catches on fast
St. Charles North's Christian Ilunga has quickly gotten up to speed since arriving here in August 2009 as a foreign exchange student from Germany.
North Stars boys track sprints coach Don Spencer said Ilunga played minimal amounts of basketball and "some Ping-Pong" back home. At St. Charles North Ilunga has been on the varsity football, basketball and now track teams.
He's evidently saved the best for last.
On Saturday at Batavia's Les Hodge Meet, the 6-foot-3 senior tied St. Charles North's school record in the 100-meter dash, a manually timed 10.9 seconds. In a Monday triangular meet at Streamwood, he did it again.
It was a big Monday for the Stars. Junior Daniel Washington set a school long jump record at 21 feet, 1/2inch; senior Aaron Sanchez tied the pole vault mark at 13-6.
For Ilunga - and for fellow sprinter Jeff Stolzenburg, too, for that matter, just .03 behind Ilunga at Batavia - Spencer thinks the fully automated timing system this Saturday at Geneva will more accurately indicate his speed.
"He's taken full advantage of his time here in the states," Spencer said. "He's played football, he's played basketball and he's jumped right into track. And he's one of the most coachable kids I've ever come across."
Midseason form: Aurora Central Catholic's relays are certainly in midseason form.
On April 8 at the Seneca Invite and again Tuesday at home the Charger boys won all four relays, with times not that far off the Class 2A state qualifying standards. "Our boys relays at this stage of the season go unusually deep for a smaller school," said ACC boys and girls coach Troy Kerber. "We can go about seven, eight deep on our 3,200 and 1,600 relays."
At Seneca the 1,600 relay of Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor qualifier John Jochum, Dan Kottkamp, Kendall Reed and Ben Garcia ended the meet with a time of 3 minutes, 34.6 seconds. They pared 2 seconds off that on Tuesday.
The 400 (44.9) and 800 relays (1:33.7) were run at both meets by identical foursomes: Garcia, Zach Flynt (a cousin of East Aurora basketball superstar Ryan Boatright, Kerber said), Reed and IPTT Indoor qualifier Joe Fese, like Flynt a freshman.
Fese also won the open 200 at Seneca and ACC, and Spencer won Seneca's open 1,600.
A bigger test awaits Friday at Yorkville's coed Matt Wulf Invite. Talents like these make it inviting for Kerber to look even further ahead.
"It is a good start, however we need to make continued progress and stay healthy," he said. "We will be heading to a strong Glenbard South 2A sectional later in the year. The relay fields will be loaded with strong teams very capable of hitting the 2A standards. We feel that five teams in that field could go in the 3,200 relay alone."
Way up there: He's not on Iowa's outdoor track roster, but former Aurora Christian high jumper Brandon Oest didn't just walk on to the Hawkeyes' indoor track team, he leapt on.
In his collegiate debut Feb. 12 at the Iowa State Classic, Oest won with a mark of 6 feet, 11 inches. It tied Iowa's season high, as Oest joined several others with the seventh-highest mark in Iowa history.
"I always told him he had 6-8 in him, but he cleared 6-11 so he surprised me even a little," said Aurora Christian coach Dr. Jeff Schutt. "A lot of these young kids, I don't think even have in their mind yet what their potential is."