Boys track and field: St. Charles North goes the distance to win 53rd annual Peterson Prep invite

Lucas Reed knew that he had plenty left in the tank.

With one lap to go in the 1,600-meter race, the St. Charles North senior found himself toward the front of a lead group of five runners and a chance to clinch the team title in the 53rd annual Peterson Prep Invite for good.

And even when he saw a runner pull ahead down the backstretch, he knew he could pull it out.

“I knew I could get him and get a kick on him,” Reed said. “I come from sprints, so I know I can run a good 400 time. Once I started moving at 200 to go, I knew I had it.”

Reed would reel it back in to win the 1,600 in 4:27.81, capping off a strong display in the distance events from the North Stars to clinch their first Peterson Prep title with 97 points.

“I’m pleasantly surprised, but to win this one against some great teams is nice,” North Stars coach Kevin Harrington said. “We’re trying to get kids in the races they need to be in. I know we’re decent, but I didn’t expect to win.”

Of their total points on the day, 41 of them came from the individual distance events. Miles Dill took third behind Reed in the 1,600, Christian Enger (9:39.61) and Matthew Russell (9:40.13) finished 1-2 in the 3,200, and Logan Hitchings and John Tanig combined for seven points in the 800.

“Our team’s just been working together really well,” Reed said. “We have a lot of guys that can run anywhere from the 400 to the 3,200. And that’s a great thing to have heading into championship season.”

The North Stars also secured a win in the shot put, with Cooper Kowalczyk clearing 57 feet, 11¾ for the title. He would add a fifth-place finish in the discus, with teammate Lucas Tenbrock finishing a place in front of him.

“For them, their floor just keeps getting higher, and we don’t know where their ceiling is yet,” Harrington said. “Their consistency of their floor is great. There’s a lot of things on this team that is progressing as we should right now.”

Kaneland saw a big surge in the latter half of the meet, jumping from sixth with seven events remaining all the way to second, finishing with 77 points at the home meet.

“We had a lot of guys step up for us,” Knights coach Andy Drendel. “We had a lot of kids all across the board take the meet to heart. Two things we’ve been lacking is intensity and passion, and we did that here. We competed with intensity and passion.”

A lot of it was thanks to the efforts from their sprint relays. The Knights scored 26 points across their three sprint relays, which included wins in the 4x100 (43.13) and 4x200 (1:29.98), with the former of the events seeing the Knights jump five places from their initial projections.

“We didn’t really know what we had, but to take it home and run a good race, I was happy,” said Ben Karl, who anchored both wins for the Knights. “I was proud of my three teammates, they got it to me and gave me a chance to win, and I was happy to bring it away.”

Karl finished with 31 points across four events, the most for an individual on the day. And coming into the day, his only focus was making sure he helped his team get past a projected fifth-place finish.

“I didn’t care about the time as much as winning for my team and teammates,” Karl said. “I just wanted to get as many points as possible, especially on our home track. It’s defending your home turf, there’s nothing like it.”

A third-place finish in the 4x400 would help the Knights pass Yorkville, who took third on the day with 76 points, in the final standings. The Foxes still had an impressive day without distance standout Owen Horeni, clocking in three wins on the day.

Sophomore Peyden Shepherd finished as the only athlete at the meet to win two individual events. His most impressive win came in the 300 hurdles, dropping four seconds off his personal-best to win in 40.58 from the second-to-last heat. Shepherd also added a win in the 110 hurdles, crossing the line in 15.67.

“My coach was telling me about my arms and how I’d drop them and cause me to stutter-step, so I just made sure I could see my arms,” Shepherd said. “I wanted to see one at all times, and it helped me push through the hurdle and onto the next one.”

Sophomore Aiden Kolkmeyer had the most memorable win on the day for the Foxes, outkicking Neuqua Valley’s Edward Mason down the stretch to win the 400 in 48.62, breaking a 31-year meet record in the process.

“I just wanted to get out at a good pace, floated and then saw that guy was right in front of me at the end and I knew I had to close,” Kolkmeyer said. “I didn’t think I was going to break a meet record either. I was going for a 48, didn’t think it would be that low of a 48.”

Geneva ended up just missing out on a top-3 finish as a team, finishing fourth with 74 points. The Vikings had a 1-2 finish in the 800, led by a 1:57.87 by sophomore Cameron Schmidt, and also took the 4x400 in a season-best 3:25.56.

DeKalb barely clinched a top-5 team finish at the meet, beating out sixth-place Sycamore 63.5-63. Both teams had two wins on the day, with the Barbs having wins in the 100 (Braylen Anderson, 10.99) and triple jump (Ricai Nellums, 43-3¾) and the Spartans claiming victory in the 4x800 (8:07.10) and discus (Will Rosenow, 166-10).

Neuqua Valley (seventh, 57 points), Wheaton Academy (T-12th, 14 points) and Dundee-Crown (T-15th, 10 points) rounded out the teams with individual winners. Daniel Robinson got the top spot in a 1-2 finish for the Wildcats in the 200, winning in 22.65. Griffin Schlenbecker won the high jump for the Warriors with a leap of 6-5½, and Rylan Schmidt cleared 13-11¼ to win the pole vault for D-C.