Palatine wins Wheeling regional
The Wheeling Class 3A boys cross country regional at Heritage Park on Saturday was dominated by Palatine.
The Pirates won the team championship, had the individual winner in junior Anthony Gregorio with a time of 15:09, and placed seven of its runners among the first 11 finishers.
“The idea was to try to run as a team, and run the second half of the race faster than the first half,” Palatine coach Chris Quick said. “We definitely went out and tried to execute what our team was supposed to do today, and they did that so I'm pretty happy.”
Quick said junior Peter Tomkiewicz, the 11th-place finisher, was filling in on Saturday for a runner who was out with the flu.
“It shows the depth of the team,” Quick said. “That was kind of the idea, to really feed off each other in a meet like this. There's two big meets coming up in the next two weeks. You don't want to really dump a bunch of physical and emotional energy into something that is a real low-key affair.”
Quick said Gregorio is Palatine's first individual regional champion since 2004.
“We made him kind of run back with the pack and then he was going to get half the race to try to make it up and win, and he was able to do that,” Quick said. “He seems to be feeling really confident after doing that.”
Gregorio said it is a cool feat to win the regional championship, but he has focused more on team aspects since the Pirates struggled as a group at the Notre Dame Invite in Peoria on Sept. 18.
“I wasn't really racing for the team, I was racing for myself,” Gregorio said of his mentality before that Invite. “I decided I wanted to let that go and focus on team aspects. It's good to be regional champion, but I'd let it all go to make sure we qualified for sectionals and state. I'd take away my personal glory any time.”
Gregorio said he's focused on team-bonding and learning to race as a team instead of an individual by trying to push everyone to better times instead of just pushing himself since that race in September.
“I believe in my teammates,” Gregorio said. “I believe they are really good, and I believe they can run with me anytime they want.”
Barrington junior Eric Peterson was the runner-up with a time of 15:15. Buffalo Grove junior Jereme Atchison was just a hair behind Peterson in third place with the same time. Palatine's Reuben Fey (15:17) and Tim Johnson (15:35) were fourth and fifth.
The five best teams from the Wheeling regional advance to the Schaumburg sectional meet, which will be run next Saturday at Busse Woods. Joining Palatine will be Barrington, Hersey, Fremd and Buffalo Grove.
“Our focus is purely on how we race and work together as a unit, and trying to perfect the things we need to do as a unit in these two big races coming up – the sectional qualifier and the state meet,” Quick said. “I thought we accomplished that today, no doubt about it. It was a pretty impressive showing.”
Also advancing to the sectional are: sophomore Kevin Schreiber from St. Viator, sophomore Dustin Throw from Cary Grove, and juniors Nick Modlin and Jordi Arriaga and sophomore Terence Moran from Wheeling. They advance because they were the runners with the five best times not on an advancing team.