West Aurora wins fourth straight Kane County meet
Like a family that uses its fine china only on special occasions, the West Aurora boys track and field team waits until the championship season begins each May to break out its top-of-the-line uniforms.
Friday night qualified as an occasion worthy of special threads as the Blackhawks secured their fourth straight title at the 93rd Annual Kane County Boys Track and Field Meet, which was held at Millennium Field in Streamwood.
West Aurora scored 58 points in the field events and won two relays en route to winning the team title for the 18th time since 1982.
“It was a really good start for us and it kind of snowballed from there,” West Aurora coach Courtney Lamb said. “The guys got some confidence on the track after seeing their teammates do well (in the field). This is an awesome meet, one of the oldest in Illinois and the talent here is really on par with a sectional meet. It's fun for our guys to come out at this point and see where we are.”
West Aurora scored 110 points to finish safely ahead of second place Batavia (82.5). St. Charles North was third with 62 points, followed by Kaneland (57), St. Charles East (49), Burlington Central (57), Geneva (42), Dundee-Crown (31), Marmion (26), Streamwood (20), Aurora Central Catholic (17), Larkin (15) and East Aurora (1).
Leading the charge for West Aurora was Matt Souvannasing. The senior defended his county title in the long jump (22 feet, 1 inch), finished fifth in the triple jump despite skipping the finals (42-11) and was a member of the winning 800-meter relay (1:30.26) team alongside Rodney Cooper, Mike Graham and Zach Woods.
“I definitely think that's going to be our sectional group,” Souvannasing said of the winning 800-meter lineup.
Woods also won the 200-meter dash in 22.60, just ahead of Aurora Central Catholic sophomore Joe Fese (23.0).
Batavia was the only school to break a meet record. The Bulldogs closed the meet by blowing away the field in the 1,600-meter relay. The time of 3:20.99 broke the record of 3:22.04 held by East Aurora since 1985.
“It's so great to be a part of a team like that,” said Rob Mohr, a member of the record-breaking team. Mohr also won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles (38.23) and finished second in the 110s (14.52) to Kaneland's Taylor Andrews (14.38).
Other winners included Marmion's Eddie Grahovec in the 800 (1:58.21), St. Charles East's Steven Decker in the 1,600 (4:27.34), Dillon Mugge in the 800 (22.67) and Rob Davidsen in the pole vault (14-3), St. Charles North's Hodges Oshay in the high jump (6-6), Batavia's Brian Wilson in the shot put (53-11) and West Aurora's Alex Chollet in discus (164-3).
Burlington Central, which won the Kane County Meet in 2007 but scored only 7 team points at last year's meet, bounced back behind three second place finishes to take sixth place.
“Much better,” Central coach Mike Schmidt said. “I'm proud of our team. We earned back some respect and it'll hopefully transition into the money meets at sectional and state.”
In addition to his third-place finish in the triple jump, Llanes was fourth in the long jump (21-5¾) and took second in the 110-meter hurdles (14.88). Central's Clint Kliem placed second in the mile (4.:29.15), Mike Gulik was second in the 800 (2:00.49) and both took part in the Rockets' second-place 3,200 relay (8:06.72).
Central's Michael Kellenberger was on pace to break his personal best in the 300 intermediate hurdles, but he caught the last hurdle, tumbled to the track and did not finish.