Streamwood sophomore Holder qualifies
Less was more in the case of Streamwood sophomore sprinter Blake Holder in the training week leading up to Friday’s Class 3A Bartlett boys track and field sectional.
Plagued by a sore hamstring, Holder said his practice time was limited all week long. In fact, he babied the leg so much in his preliminary heat he barely advanced to the finals.
However, such precautionary measures paid dividends when Holder blew away the field to win the 100-meter dash. His time of 10.85 comfortably bested second-place finisher Emund Kabba of Batavia (11.12).
“All the hard work and all the practice paid off for us. This feels really good,” Holder said. “I just scraped through to the finals, then I ran like I’ve been running all year. I just wanted to see if my hamstring was fine. I had to ice it all week.”
Holder will participate in two events at next week’s state meet in Charleston. Earlier in the evening, he anchored Streamwood’s school record-setting 400-meter relay team of Terrell Campbell, Steve Sandoval and Sean Patterson. Their mark of 42.12 shattered the old record of 42.7, which has stood since 1990.
“It means a lot because we’ve been practicing so much on that and we’ve been wanting to go downstate,” Campbell said.
“In the (400 relay) we’re going down there to run as fast as we can and try to be state champs,” Holder said. “If not, we’ll tip our hats.”
Everyone in attendance tipped their hats to Batavia, which dominated the team competition with 100 points. Geneva was second (71), followed by St. Charles East (63), St. Charles North (62) and Bartlett (41).
The Hawks were led by two sectional champions in field events. Bartlett senior Brian Polubinski qualified for state for the second straight year by winning the shot put (54-06¼), though he had some nervous moments leading up to his state qualifying throw.
“I got off to a scary start,” said Polubinski, who will play football next year at Wicsonsin-Platteville. “I scratched on my first two throws in prelims, so I had to do a standing throw just to make the finals because I couldn’t afford to fall out of the ring. Then my first throw in finals was 54-6¼, which was good enough.”
Bartlett’s Tynan Johnson, like Holder, hasn’t done much training lately due to a sore hamstring. That didn’t stop him from winning the long jump (22-7) by a wide margin over St. Charles North’s Daniel Washington (21-10).
“This was actually my first time jumping competitively in about a month, so the distance was a surprise,” Johnson said, “but I was expecting to win.”
Another District U-46 athlete expecting victory was Larkin senior Lamonte Norwood. And victory was precisely what the normally slow-starting senior achieved, even if he was a bit surprised by the manner in which he punched his first state ticket.
“That was actually my first jump of the night,” said Norwood, who usually jumps longer and longer as meets progress. “That was amazing. It feels great. I just let it all out on my first jump and it paid off. I’m very excited.”