York follows leaders to Prospect title
Whether York senior Paul Golen heard the instructions from his coach or not, it turned out he did just what the Dukes coaches had asked him to do.
Just before Golen took his final attempt in the discus on Friday at the 44th annual Knights Wanner Invite at Prospect, one of the Dukes assistant coaches yelled to Golen to try and hit the fence.
“I heard fence but I was concentrating on my throw,” Golen said. “I knew I had to step it up since I had just one throw left.”
Golen nearly did what his coaches asked. His last throw landed just in front of the fence — and actually it did hit the fence on a bounce, establishing a personal best of 160-7 and a win in the event.
“I just tried to keep the disc low and not get caught up in the wind,” Golen said. “I was starting to rise up on my throws and I knew if I kept it down I could get it under the wind.”
It was a total bounce back for the Dukes. Despite just one event win on the track, York used its tremendous depth in the field events to capture top team honors with 134 points. Defending champion and host Prospect ran second with 100.83 points followed by Naperville Central (76) and Lyons Township (67).
York ruled the field events by taking a 1-2 finish in the pole vault and top three finishes in every other field event.
Nick Sgarbossa and Sean John dominated the vault. Sgarbossa cleared 14-9 and John 14-feet to take the event. Reid Smith took the high jump clearing 5-11 and the tandem of Matt Arce and John Piotter scored big in the long jump with a second- and third-place finish respectively.
The relay portion of the night belonged to Prospect. The Knights took the most coveted relay of the meet — the 3,200 relay with the foursome of Mike Thill, Josh Campos, Max Daleiden and Dan Troutman running a season-best 8:00.99.
“You could definitely feel the wind right on the main stretch which made it kind of tough out there,” Thill said. “At this meet this relay means a lot and we were happy to get the win.”
A year ago, the sprint relays at Prospect earned as much attention as the Knights 3,200 relay. This season is no different. The 400 and 800 relays on Friday night turned into a two-team battle between the Knights and Elgin.
The 400 relay was the better of the two with Nick Meersman edging Dennis Moore from Elgin at the finish line to win in a season best 43.62. Pete Meersman, Vito Anzalone and Sam Frasco teamed for the win.
The same two teams battled to the wire in the 800 relay with much the same result as the 400 relay. Jack Tuttle joined the Meersman brothers and Anzalone for an impressive 1:31.18 clocking to edge out Elgin (1:31.37).
“It was great getting to race (Elgin),” Anzalone said. “They were right there with us in both races. We have worked hard to get our handoffs down and it paid off tonight.”
The relays didn’t garner the only wins for the Knights as junior Dave Kendziera put together an impressive effort in taking the 110 high hurdles (14.87) and 300 intermediate hurdles (40.80).
“I worked all summer long – all fall, it started since last year that I have worked to get better,” Kendziera said. “Racing against great competition helped out, too.”
The competition was as good as Mark Balmes of Hersey has seen this year. But the loss to Golen in the discus seemed to inspire the usually mild-mannered Balmes. On his final throw in the shot put, Balmes earned a personal best of 58-6.5½ — the second best throw in the state this spring.
Right on the heels of Balmes was up-and-coming Libertyville junior Matt Dziedzic. Dziedzic slowly has climbed up the shot put ranks this spring but just recently passed 52 feet. Friday, he went past that mark and then some. His second to last throw in the finals of the shot put yielded a personal best toss of 56-4, besting his previous personal best by four feet.
Barrington senior Erik Peterson also had designs on a personal best in the 3,200-meter run, but the brutal cold and biting wind kept Peterson to a close to but not quite personal mark of 9:17.29.
“The wind wasn’t as calm as when I started but I was still able to get out and do what I needed to do,” said the Butler-bound Peterson. “Overall I am pretty pleased.”
Other winners included Felipe Garcia of Maine West in the 800 (1:58.27), AJ Scarbrough of Barrington in the triple jump (46-6.5) and the team of Sam Bransby, Tyler Haines, Kevin Kulling and Brad Kouchoukos from Naperville Central in the 1,600 relay (3:27.61).