West Aurora wins Bell Invitational
Winning a big track meet at home never gets old.
"Oh, gosh no," confirmed West Aurora coach Cortney Lamb after his Blackhawks won the 10th annual John Bell Invitational at Ken Zimmerman Field.
"It's always nice to win," Lamb said. "Maybe I win a few more and they're going to rename it the Cortney Lamb Invite. John's had his name on it long enough, I think."
Ah, he's got a million of 'em. Well, three at least. West Aurora on Saturday won its third straight invite named for the Hall of Fame former coach, who served as a meet official as usual with wife Carol in the press box wrangling results.
The Blackhawks showed more of what earned them fourth place in Class 3A in 2009 - sprinter's speed. West Aurora won both the 400- and 800-meter relays with the same lineup of Matt Souvannasing, Zach Woods, Jarrick Phillips and Leon Spears, their 800 time of 1:29.66 surpassing the 3A standard and approaching the 1993 meet record of 1:29.41.
"We have good work ethic. And then when we have to bring it we really do bring it," Souvannasing said. The junior added a fourth-place long jump of 20 feet, 83/4 inches to the mix.
In his only open event Spears ran second in the 200 dash to Thornton's Timothy Faust, himself a second-place 3A finisher to last year's Blackhawks hero, the graduated Josh Zinzer.
Spears knows he can improve even after a time of 22.03 seconds that also surpassed the qualifying standard: "I've just got to work on my finish and keep moving my arms, stay relaxed and times will drop."
The Blackhawks got wins by usual suspects Avi King in high jump and Tony Ellison in shot put. Mixed with field scorers like Souvannasing, George Malina and Alex Chollet, hurdler Marcus Waller, middle-distance guys Matt Muth and Ryan Bartell and 3,200 fifth-place finisher Steve Loran, it had West Aurora atop a tight, quality field. The Blackhawks' 86 points edged rivals Wheaton Warrenville South (78), Neuqua Valley (77.50, Downers Grove North (73) and Lyons (71.50).
"We're going to build on this and hopefully this is a nice little push toward the championship part of the season," Lamb said.
St. Charles East, itself building, placed ninth with 19 points in an 18-team meet in which six teams didn't score at all.
The Saints' Rob Davidsen scored a second-place tie in pole vault; they got a solid third by the 3,200 relay of Tim Johnson, Jared Eads, Mike Faith and Jacob Zahn.
Dylan Mugge, battling a stiff wind in pursuit of a sub-52-second 400-meter time, caught it at 51.90.
"Hopefully next meet I can run a low 51 and then so on from there. Just kind of take it one step at a time," he said.
Fellow Saints junior Mike Brown made the finals of both the 100 and 200, finishing fifth in each navigating that same breeze.
"It's kind of blowing with the homestretch, so I think even with Dylan - because he wants to get that 400 time a little bit lower, today he was really fighting for it - along that backstretch he was going really fast even with the wind in his face. It does affect you with races, but the shorter the better."