Fremd’s Bobek takes his best shot
Fremd senior Brian Bobek isn’t opposed to practicing his shot put and discus technique this spring. He simply hasn’t been healthy enough to do so regularly.
But on Tuesday, after not throwing the shot for nearly a month, Bobek tossed the lead ball a personal-best 58 feet, 4 inches at the Mid Suburban League West division meet at Barrington.
Four days later, at the 79th Palatine Relays, Bobek tossed the shot again, for only his third outdoor competition this spring. The results produced another personal best and moved the Ohio State-bound Bobek into some elite company.
The shot put pit was surrounded by onlookers waiting to see what Bobek would do, and on his first throw he didn’t let anyone down. Bobek tossed the shot 60-3 to help lead the Vikings throwers to an event win. Most importantly, Bobek is now fifth-best in a long line of great throwers at Fremd, and he’s only the fifth in school history to eclipse the 60-foot mark.
“It’s just nice to be able to get out and throw and get rid of all the nagging injuries I have had,” Bobek said. “They say when your technique is just right that the shot feels like a softball — and it felt just like that.”
While this likely means that Bobek won’t be able to go without practice the rest of the season, it does mean that he is a legitimate medal contender at the state meet next month.
His effort Saturday also earned Bobek the G.A. McElroy award as the meet’s most outstanding performer.
“We like to do a bunch of different things in practice to get the guys ready, and it’s this time of year that we start to back down and rest them some,” Fremd coach Jim Aikens said. “We haven’t been able to do that with Brian because of injuries. I still think he can be a thrower that can reach the mid-60’s.”
As a whole the Vikings followed up their MSL West title on Tuesday with another strong performance. But it wasn’t quite good enough to catch the host Palatine Pirates.
Palatine scored 118 points to earn its first team title since 2008. Fremd ran second with 94 points followed by Barrington (94), Belleville East (69) and Huntley (52).
The Pirates spent a good portion of the day without coach John Nalley, but the hosts didn’t miss a beat. Nalley was attending daughter Margaret Mary’s first communion, and when he returned all he heard was good news from his coaches.
“Our guys came up to me and said that we were just tearing it up and performing so well,” Nalley said. “Then I started watching and we finished third in one race and fourth in another so I didn’t want to jinx the kids.”
There was no jinxing Palatine’s Kendrick Cornelius. The junior who moved in from Louisiana in the off-season contributed big points for the Pirates by winning the 400-meter dash (50.7) and by anchoring the 800 relay of Terry Halloran, Jeff Winters and David DiCristofano (1:32.6).
Palatine won the distance medley relay (10:47.3) and two individual events. Tim Johnson took the 3,200 run in 9:33.7 and Ryan McGough took the 800 in1:59.2.
“After the meet on Tuesday, I think the kids got pretty fired up for today,” Nalley said. “They really wanted to come out and perform well.”
Fremd used its tremendous sprint depth to score the bulk of its points. Eric Wolski, Christian Vail, Jerrell Lewis and David Ferguson ran away from the field and a good Wheeling foursome to win the 1,600-relay (3:23.5). Wheeling and its team of Cameron Decoursey, Jordy Arriaga, Andrew Jensen and Ivan Dovbak ran a season-best as well in 3:26.0.
Wolski, Ferguson, Justin Wallace and Brandon Esquivel nearly took down the school record in winning the 400 relay in a season-best 43.5.
The team of Dave Mellado, Nick Bednarek and Eric Tchon earned the Vikings’ other event win, taking the pole vault relay.
Barrington’s tandem of Kyle Detrick, Alex Kuznicki and AJ Scarbrough won the triple jump relay. Scarbrough had the best jump of the day, leaping a personal-best 46-4. Erik Peterson provided the Broncos’ other event win by winning the 1,600 in a tight race over Andy Mack of Fremd in 4:24.8.
In their best-ever finish at the relays, Huntley earned one individual and one relay event win. Junior James Davis continues to build off his impressive sophomore season as he took down the field in the 100-meter dash (10.9).
“I was a little slower out of the blocks than I would have liked,” Davis said. “I’m just trying to build consistency and trying and get back downstate.”
Huntley also captured the discus event with a combined toss of 393-4.
Conant wound up eighth in the team race with 35 points and captured a pair of relay wins. The Cougars 3,200-relay team of Tyler Schneider, Troy Cunningham, James Weaver and Nikhil Byanna ran a season-best 8:11.3 to hold off Barrington (8:11.5).
Junior Ben Bowers led the high jump relay to a win with a best jump of 6-8.