Boys track and field: Garcia gears up as Palatine motors to relay triumph
The boys track and field season has been anything but sunny skies and warm breezes for multi-talented Palatine senior Dan Garcia.
Injuries have slowed the valuable Pirate, limiting his opportunities to contribute in quite the manner coach John Nalley had envisioned when the season began.
"When we started the season," said Nalley, "we really felt like he was going to be a guy that was going to make a difference for us this year."
Now that Garcia is finally healthy, the original plan looks good to go.
The timing was nice, too, as Garcia came back just in time to be a valuable piece for the Pirates in the 84th annual Palatine Relays.
On a day that featured more raindrops than time drops, Garcia helped Palatine to three relay event wins plus a third-place finish. More importantly, he helped the Pirates score 132 points to earn the team title in the state's oldest continuous relay meet. Barrington ran second (110), followed by Fremd (90).
Garcia earned the G.A. McElroy award as the top male athlete in the meet.
"I've been working very hard the last four years, and this season to get healthy - learning a lot from the seniors that have been here before me," Garcia said. "I came in to today with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, wanting to come out and give my best and help my team."
Garcia's signature event is the high jump, and his season-best 6-foot-3 clearance helped his team win the event. Mackenzie Balanganayi and Cordell Griffin combined for the team win.
Pirates junior Zion Oluleye dodged the raindrops in winning the 200 in 22.93. And the Pirates' long jump group of Joe Roy, Cortez Hogans and Spencer Poklop combined to jump 55-6.75.
Barrington is no stranger to injuries, either. But one of the Broncos' top returners, Nash Pirie, is finally starting to get healthy, and the Broncos are reaping the benefits already. Pirie battled through the brutal rain and wind to hold off Brandon Will of Portage, Ind., to win the 200 in 2:00.21.
The Broncos also captured the frosh/soph sprint medley relay in 3:45.31, the sprint relay in 1:38.05, the 1,600 relay (3:30.20), the shot put relay (144-10.75) and the individual 400 run, where sophomore Louis Cossio took top honors in 51.13.
Fremd had a sharp performance from Ethan Hanson in the shot put, as his throw of 53-8.25 was tops in the event. The Vikings placed second in the team relay portion of the event with a combined put of 144-2.75.
Fremd claimed a relay event win in the triple jump, as Raqid Adebayo, Samson Oladimeji and Octavio Spears combined to leap 116 feet to win the event. The Vikings also muscled their way to the top spot in the discus, where Matt Bilek, Roman Murshanko and Austin Schwartz combined to throw 420.
Buffalo Grove won the combined pole vault relay with a cumulative leap of 30-5. Evan Frank had the top mark, clearing 11-7.
For Jacobs distance coach Kevin Christian, it's a nice problem to have - where to put an especially versatile competitor. Freshman Cam Reedy is another in a long line of talented distance runners to suit up for the Golden Eagles. It's just a matter of where Reedy can be the most valuable.
Right now, it's almost every distance event that is on the board.
On Saturday it was the 3,200, and Reedy took advantage - though he did make it interesting. After Reedy led 5 laps in the race, Barrington senior Alex Maher and Palatine senior Brian Leonard challenged. Maher even took the lead with a lap to go and held as much as a 15-meter lead with some 200 meters to go.
That's when Reedy came alive, pulling in Maher and passing him to win in a season-best 9:43.18.
"(Cam) settled into that race nicely but has tendency to get comfortable," Christian said. "He is such a competitor and you saw it at the end that he has a kick to battle to the end."
Maher was second (9:43.71) and Leonard finished third (9:51.52).