Oyewole, Kuforiji shine at Millennium

Femi Oyewole took up high jumping before last season on the advice of former Bartlett track coach Jeff Bral.

In that short amount of time, the Bartlett junior has excelled and on Friday earned his first trip to the Class 3A state meet by finishing second with a height of 6-foot-1 at the Streamwood sectional at Millennium Field.

"Mr. Bral told me to come out and see how I like it and if I'm good at it," Oyewole said. "I came out, did it. I liked it. I've worked hard."

Oyewole, who set the school record at 6-3 last week at the Upstate Eight Conference meet, is the first Bartlett high jumper to advance to state.

"Hopefully I can PR again," Oyewole said of his goals for state. "It's hard to win state. I know there's tough competition down there."

"Even though it's been two years, he hasn't gotten a full two years because he is still doing AAU basketball," Hawks coach Eric Kramer said. "We have to work around the schedule.

"He has grown up. He's gotten mentally stronger. As soon as he gets a little bit of confidence going over that bar, it keeps going up and up and up."

The Hawks advanced three field athletes to the state meet, which begins next Friday in Charleston. Elgin's Adam Kuforiji won the 400-meter dash to advance as well.

Bartlett sophomore Kevin Bauers earned his trip to state on his final discus throw, finishing third. His distance of 157-1 bettered the state qualifying mark of 155-0. The throw was Bauers' personal best by almost 5 feet. Brian Polubinski, a junior, finished second in the shot put with a throw of 52-21/2.

"The field events were nice," Kramer said. "It's the most multi event kids we've qualified in school history."

The top two finishers in each event and any athlete beating the state qualifying time advanced to state. The meet was delayed for almost 2 hours during preliminaries because of weather.

Kuforiji, who skipped the conference meet because of the flu, earned his second trip to state by winning the 400 dash. The senior finished in 49.09 seconds.

"I picked it up in the middle of the curve," Kuforiji said. "I really gave it my all at the end. This might have been my last race in high school."

Kuforiji did not qualify for the finals in the 400 last year at the state meet.