Lake Zurich relays surge to point-scoring finales
As he walked off the track with his teammates, Lake Zurich senior Francisco Soto looked liked he'd reached a new level of achievement.
Because of the timing of the boys track and field state finals at Eastern Illinois and O'Brien Stadium on Saturday, Soto and senior teammate Paul Geimer had to miss the graduation ceremony at Lake Zurich.
But in the end that was OK with Soto, as he, Geimer and teammates Alex Brend and Chris Rantis graduated to a new level in the 3,200 relay finals.
After having lowered their school record each of the last three races, the foursome put up numbers on Saturday that were simply staggering. With their fifth-place finish, the Bears earned their highest-ever finish in a relay. And the time of 7:48.61 was mind-blowing to Geimer and the team.
"This is just surreal," Geimer said. "I thought going in that if we ran 7:49 or 7:50 that would be good, but to run 7:48 in such a hard-fought, tight race like that was just amazing."
The medal in the 2-mile relay was the first of a pair of relay medals for the Bears on Saturday. While the 400 relay team of Christian Williams, Braxton Klavins, Colin Wanat and Jacob Brinlee would dearly love to have the race back, their eighth-place finish in 42.61 is the highest finish the Bears have had in a sprint relay.
Klavins, Jackson Rathe, Brinlee and Brend finished up their day with a ninth-place finish in the 1,600-relay in 3:23.11.
Lake Park captured the Class 3A team title. Hillcrest defended its team title to earn its second Class 2A crown, and downstate Herrin, led by four-event winner Zach Riley earned the Class 1A crown.
Saturday was also a record-setting afternoon for Lakes junior John Pfeiffer. No Eagle had ever earned a medal, let alone a pair - at least not until this weekend.
After he improved his distance in the discus by a couple of feet, Pfeiffer earned a fourth-place medal. That matched the fourth-place medal he earned in the shot put earlier in the day, giving Pfeiffer special status at the five-year-old school.
"Hopefully this is a strong foundation for future throwers and runners at Lakes to strive for," Pfeiffer said. "This was a totally new experience for me and I look forward to coming down here next year."
Antioch senior Brandon Ginter also earned a spot on the medal stand as his best effort of 146-11 held up for ninth place overall.
Stevenson junior Brandon Stryganek is also earning historical status at the Lincolnshire school, but that status is turning into more of a celebrity status after his performance this weekend.
No Patriot has ever earned a pair of medals in the sprints at one state meet until Stryganek did. His third-place finish in the 100 dash coupled with his fourth-place finish in the 200 gave Stryganek a piece of history.
"I came down here and wrote down my goals before I got down here that I wanted to earn a couple medals, and I did that so I am pretty happy," Stryganek said. "Today was a little tougher than yesterday with the heat and my legs seemed a little more tired today than yesterday."
Jeremy Birck of Libertyville had set a goal for himself this weekend. He almost exceeded it in the finals of the high jump.
"I wanted 6-7 and a PR this weekend," Birck said. "Then when I got that, whatever else happened was going to be great."
Birck nearly moved up even further, but nudged the bar with his foot as he attempted to clear 6-9 and ended up in sixth place overall.
"Definitely this motivates me for next year," Birck said. "I am going to work hard in the off-season and come back here next year."
Vernon Hills senior Andrew Thompson earned his spot in the finals on Friday, and then earned himself a medal with a big push at the end of the Class 2A 1,600-meter run. Thompson moved up three spots over the last 100 meters to finish ninth in a PR of 4:23.32.
Bryant Jennings and Chris Makey of Grayslake Central and Bill Brinser of Lakes also competed in the finals on Saturday.