Wheaton North best at Best Four
Both the Cubs and the White Sox celebrated their opening days last week after preparing for this season with spring training.
High school track teams work under the same basic concept. They have their spring training with the indoor season and then they can head outdoors.
It was opening day for the boys track teams gathered Saturday for the 26th annual Best Four Invitational at Wheaton North as they enjoyed their first outdoor competition of the year.
And when it was over, the host Falcons stood as winners with 206 points. Wheaton Warrenville South was second with 200.5 with defending Class 3A state champion Lake Park (198), Plainfield South (179.5), Naperville Central (121) and Willowbrook (44) following.
The competition works like four meets in one. A team enters four athletes in each event. The best athlete in that event competes in the Level 1 heat, the next best competes at Level 2 and so on.
There’s nothing new about athletes making the switch from indoor track to outdoor track. But Falcons coach Don Helberg said both are different and adjustments have to be made.
“There are a lot of new distances. The 55 hurdles all of sudden is the 110 hurdles. There are two laps outdoors in the 800. Indoors, it’s four to five,” he said.
The bright sun and warm temperature might have made it less comfortable for the running events, especially the distance lengths, but all that gathered seemed pleased that opening day for the outdoor track season for the teams gathered was taking place in the best weather so far this year.
And the bronzed running shoe trophy for the champion Falcons made the day even better.
“I thought we had a good day,” Helberg said. “A lot of sophomores and juniors competed today for us. We had baton drops in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays, but that’s little stuff that can be corrected.”
Team standings were kept for Level 2 through Level 4 of the competition, and the Falcons placed first in each category.
Willowbrook got the day started off right with wins in two of the first three Level 1 events.
The Warriors won the 3,200-meter relay in 8 minutes, 33.2 seconds, and then Pat Niyork won the 3,200 in 9: 38.6.
“My kick is not too strong. I realized I had to make my move and I started to pull away. My legs were getting heavy at the end. I was near the finish and I looked around and there was no one there. I was glad of that,” Niyork said.
Adding to his victory was the invitation he got before Saturday’s meet to compete again in a 5-kilometer cross country race as part of the Gold Coast Airport Marathon in Brisbane, Australia, in early July. Niyork finished third Down Under last year. Teammate Tim Hyde received his first invitation.
The Lancers won eight events on Level 1 with their race victories coming from Scott Filip in the 110 high hurdles, Kevin Jorgensen in the 800 and Larry Matthies in the 300 hurdles.
Matthies competed in one of the more interesting races of the afternoon as he beat out two other runners right at the very end of the race.
“You have them (the other runners) in your peripheral (vision), but it comes down to focusing on what you have to do,” he said.
Lake Park won five field events. Jeremy Kline, who placed third in state last season in the shot put, won that event and the discus. Sean Lang won the pole vault and Zach Ziemek the long jump. Kevin Spejcher leaped to 6-8 in the high jump.
Coach Jay Ivory is pleased with how the Lancers so far are competing as defending state champs.
“We had some strong performances. We had two kids hit 23 feet in the long jump. Kevin Spejcher hit 6-8 in the long jump and had some real good looks at 6-11. That would have been a personal best,” Ivory said. “We used a lot of younger kids today.”
WW South had three victories on Level 1: Will Davis won the triple jump, Charlie Pinedo the 200 and Colin Fedor the 1,600.
“I was able to hold the pace. I had some kick left and made my move on the last lap,” Fedor said.
Naperville Central coach Steve Wiesbrook liked what he saw of the Redhawks on Saturday.
“We are ahead of where we were at this time last year,” he said.