Wheaton North soars among the best
The 80th running of the DuPage County Boys Track & Field Championships on Friday offered some awesome achievements.
Lake Park varsity triple jumpers Scott Filip and Sean Koch each surpassed 46 feet and a sophomore, Marcus Jegede, sailed 45.
Waubonsie Valley discus thrower Riley Kittridge improved his personal best by more than 20 feet, to 167 feet, 11 inches, winning the event after being seeded eighth.
Glenbard West’s Mike Lederhouse, challenged in the 1,600-meter run first by Naperville North’s Jimmy Qiao and at the end by Wheaton North’s Aidan Askin, zoomed to victory at 4 minutes, 13.83 seconds.
Five runners, headed by Glenbard South’s John Wold, cracked the two-minute barrier in the 800-meter run.
Montini, with St. Francis the smallest among the 14 teams competing at Lake Park’s East Campus, won back-to-back events.
Through it all Wheaton North kept chugging, piling up 121 points — 43 more than second-place Lake Park, 63 more than third-place York.
The Falcons won all four relays, featured a 1-2 shot put finish by Christian Hollinger and Mack Spaulding, and scored in 16 events.
They would have scored in 17 had Zach Gordon, who ran the fastest 200-meter preliminary time of 22.13 seconds, not been held out of the finals due to hamstring stiffness and dipping temperature. As it was, Gordon won long jump (not easy with Filip and Koch around) and, along with Patrick Sharp and Marcus Charles, ran on both the 400 and 800 relays.
“The kids ran really well tonight, I’m so proud of them. We’ll see how good we can get,” said Falcons coach Don Helberg, who also got great nights from distance guys Askin and Alex Ryan, hurdler Brian Kohler and sprinter Eric Altimari, among others.
Gordon said Helberg’s direction was simple: “He said that we were really going to do good this meet. Nice weather, just said, ‘Go out and get a PR.’”
Among the most dynamic personal records was nailed by Filip. In triple jump he got all three phases clicking to land a meet-record distance of 46 feet, 11 inches. He celebrated with three hair-raising yelps of joy.
“It just got to me because I cannot believe I actually hit that mark and I’m very excited,” said Filip, also second in long jump and high jump, behind Lancer Kevin Spejcher at 6-9. “It’s about time, I’ve been waiting for that mark for, like, two months.”
To Glenbard South’s John Wold it’s probably that long since he’s run in a meet. Bone stress and ligament/tendon issues have shelved the sophomore since April 14, but Friday he ran a comfortable 800 meters to win at 1:57.07. WW South’s Derek Anderson, Wheaton North’s Ryan, Naperville Central’s Brad Kouchoukos and Naperville North’s Jack Cerne all went under two minutes.
“Dr. (Steve) Major has been helping me out, who also coaches at Wheaton North,” Wold said. “He’s been a great help and I’ve made a fast recovery and hopefully I’ll be able to get back in good shape for these last three weeks.”
Willowbrook’s Pat Niyork, who won the County 3,200-meter run last year in 9:33, repeated as champion with a more compelling time of 9:16.25.
“This was the last real meet about time. From now on it’s all racing, just get the guy in front of you,” said Niyork, aiming for state hardware.
Fourth-place Waubonsie Valley had another winner in John Burke in the 400; Elven Walker won the 300 hurdles for fifth-place Glenbard South.
And in the space of about five minutes, Montini’s Pat Barrett and Anthony Taylor won the 110 hurdles and 100 dash.
“Just like the Montini football program,” said Taylor, an Eastern Illinois-bound wide receiver. “Over the years we were always a small school going against the big schools. Now, we’re up there with the big guys.”