Wheaton Warrenville South takes 2nd
The home team certainly showed up in the Red Grange Invitational at Wheaton Warrenville South.
The Tigers took second place overall in the 13-team meet: third in Class A, second in Class B and second in Class C. They finished with 190 points, just 6 points shy of first-place Evanston but 13 points ahead of third-place Prospect.
"Great night. Finally the wind died down," Tigers coach Ken Helberg said. "I thought the kids did a great job. We had a few little nagging injuries that crept up, but I thought it was a good showing for our kids. Our relays did a nice job. Just kind of all over everyone did a nice job. I was really pleased."
The Tigers had seven first-place finishers but only had two in Class A, with senior Nolan McKenna topping the 3,200-meter run with a time of 9:20.23 and Luke Schroer taking first in the 1,600 meters in 4:17.36.
McKenna finished almost 25 seconds before the second-place finisher, but the senior said he still hasn't hit his mark.
"I can't be too mad, but it's pretty far off where I want to be," McKenna said. "The same thing kind of happened last year where I had a little dip and in the end I peaked at the right time and it all worked itself out. Hopefully, it will be the same this year. I want to go sub nine (minutes)."
Waubonsie Valley senior thrower Jon Harris put together a very nice performance on the night, taking first in Class A discus with a 180-3 and second in shot put with 50-11½ behind Prospect's Justin Phillops who tossed a 53-0.
"I felt like I could have done a lot better in the shot," Harris said. "Discus I threw a 180 and that was a 10-foot (personal record) …. It felt really good, it felt like I could still get a couple more feet."
Despite his team placing 13th with 52.25 points, South Elgin's Kyle Kumerow earned some points for his team.
The senior placed second in Class A high jump with a 6-5 after falling in extras to Naperville North's Tim Heinz, placed sixth in Class A pole vault with an 11-9 and even found some success in his first relay as South Elgin placed fourth in the 400 relay.
In total Kumerow helped earn almost 25 percent of his team's points.
"Lately I've been kind of down in the slumps, kind of trying to get my stuff together and today was real nice," Kumerow said. "It's been coming. I had a good 6-5 jump at high jump, an elbow away from 6-7 and I PR'd in pole vault twice so all around it was a really good day for me and it was the first time I've ever ran a 4x100."
Naperville North finished fourth with 124.25 points, Waubonsie Valley in fifth with 111, Glenbard West in eighth with 82.25 while Metea Valley finished 10 points ahead of South Elgin with 62 points for 12th place.
Glenbard West coach Jon Schweighardt said despite the mid-table finish the Hilltoppers will be ready for sectionals.
"The one thing is that it's a good meet where you can run young kids against varsity competition so they get varsity experience," Schweighardt said. "I don't know that we ran our best today, but it's April 25, it's not May 21st at sectionals. We think we will be ready in a month when we will need to be."