Fox Valley athletes earn six state medals

Five athletes from the Fox Valley area earned six state medals at the boys track and field state championships in Charleston Saturday, led by two-time all-state finisher Tre Llanes of Burlington Central.

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee recruit, Llanes earned the second and third outdoor state medals of his career by finishing ninth in the long jump (21 feet, 4½ inches) and sixth in the 110-meter high hurdles (14.63) at the Class 2A meet.

“I think it’s an amazing end to my high school track career,” said Llanes, who already owns three indoor state medals. “I’m really happy that I could go out with two medals. Things went pretty much as I expected.”

In the starter’s tent before the hurdling event, Llanes chatted with friend Taylor Andrews of Kaneland, who had broken the state record in Friday’s preliminaries. He told Andrews he hoped to push him to another state record, but Llanes wasn’t able to match his blazing time of 14.54 in Friday’s preliminaries after banging into two hurdles early in the race.

“He hit a couple of hurdles, the college hurdles, and when you hit college hurdles they fight back because they’re the real heavy ones,” Burlington Central coach Mike Schmidt said. “He still ran a respectable race, only a tenth of a second off his personal best, but it knocked him down to sixth.”

Andrews went on to break his own state record in 14.27.

Llanes didn’t have a smooth day at the long jump pit, where he was unable to improve upon his preliminary leap.

“I was having trouble with my mark and getting on the board,” he said. “I just really needed to get one in, so my second jump I just slowed down and went 20-10. My last jump I let it all go and was just over by not even an inch, so I’m pretty disappointed with that. But I’m happy with being able to take home a state medal.”

Burlington Central junior Clint Kliem took fourth in the 800 in 1:56.84, which was an impressive showing since the race was won in state-record time by Springfield junior Michael Simon (1:55.82).

Kliem was boxed in a bit at the start, but he was able to join the lead pack of four, which included Simon. The result yielded his first state track medal. Kliem already has two cross country medals.

“We came out a little slow after 500 meters, so I knew the last lap was going to be hard,” Kliem said. “Basically, the game plan was to stay with the top three the whole time and kick all out in the last 200 meters. But I saw everybody start to kick with around 300-250 meters to go.”

“He gave it all he had,” Schmidt said, “but it just wasn’t quite enough. Still, he ran a very good tactical race and finished fourth and equaled his personal best. I’m really proud of him as a junior.”

Cary-Grove’s Anthony Golowach placed fifth in the 400. The senior completed his lap around the track in 48.6 seconds. He came out “a touch slow through the first 200 meters,” according to Trojans coach Layne Holter and was unable to catch the leaders in the stretch run.

“The last 75 meters I just got really tired and couldn’t push any harder,” Golowach said. “I would have liked to place better, but I was pretty excited about how I did. Going in my goal was to get a medal, so to come back with that feels pretty great.”

Cary-Grove junior Josh Freeman finished in 11th place in the discus. After throwing 158 feet in Friday’s prelims, he wasn’t able to add distance in the finals Saturday and fell just shy of all-state status.

“I had a good year, but I’m going to use this as motivation going into next season,” said Freeman, who won the Fox Valley Conference shot and discus titles and the McHenry County discus title. “I don’t like not being able to medal because I knew I could have done better.”

Dundee-Crown’s Andrew Knapik finished 16th in the 3200-meter run. The senior, who was fifth in his section, finished in 9:33.77.

Dundee-Crown junior Ardian Asani finished third in the long jump with a distance of 22-11¾, just ahead of fourth-place finisher Tynan Johnson of Bartlett. A senior, Johnson jumped 22-9¼. Lake Park’s Zach Ziemek won the event with a distance of 23-8.

In fact, Ziemek also won the triple jump (50-6¼) and the pole vault (16-6) to pace runaway Class 3A team champion Lake Park, which scored 74 points to outdistance York (43).

Cahokia won the Class 2A meet with 62 points, far ahead of second-place Chatham Glenwood.

Popenfoose qualifies twice for NCAA Outdoor: Huntley graduate Marcus Popenfoose qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in the discus throw Saturday, two days after he qualified in the shot put.

Competing in the East Region qualifying round in Bloomington, Ind., Popenfoose finished 12th in the discus with a throw of 179 feet, 9½ inches. The top 12 finishers in the qualifying round advance to the championship meet at Drake University June 8-10.

Popenfoose will compete in two events at Drake. He also qualified in the shot put on Thursday, finishing in ninth place with a heave of 59-4¾. It tied his personal record and tied him for ninth in Auburn history.