Boys track and field: Downers Grove South gets its medal
Downers Grove South junior Shawn Lee said Mustangs' field event athletes feel "kind of awkward" when leaving a track meet without a medal.
"It's like, if you're not doing your best personally, get points for the team," he said.
Done.
Thursday at the West Suburban Conference Gold Division boys track championship at Hinsdale South in Darien Lee won shot put at 54 feet, 9½ inches, teammate Kendall Burrow won discus at 162-1 and the Mustangs double-scored in all of the six field events.
Adding victories by Jack Meyer in the 110-meter high hurdles, John Heneghan in the 3,200 and Jayden Lambert, Eli Reed, Ben Skibbe and Kenny Creamer in the 800 relay, Downers Grove South scored in 17 of 18 events to win its 10th Gold title in 11 seasons with 158 points to runner-up Hinsdale South's 96. Willowbrook won the sophomore title.
"You can't ever take it for granted," said Mustangs coach Brian Caldwell.
"We did what we were supposed to do today and it feels good and now we can go back to work tomorrow and focus on what we've really been aiming toward all year, which is sectionals and state," he said.
Hinsdale South finished on a high when Jayden Arquines' 49-second split time in the 1,600 relay pushed the Hornets past rival Downers South. His cheering teammates carried Arquines on their shoulders.
On paper Hinsdale South's Benedictine University-bound Kam Lipscomb wasn't supposed to win long jump or triple jump. He held his No. 2 seed in long jump, right ahead of Willowbrook's Deandre Holliday, then Lipscomb went 43-0½ to win triple jump ahead of all-stater Lambert, who omitted his three jumps in finals to concentrate on the relay.
"Last year same thing," Lipscomb said, "there were more people ahead of me, so more people were jumping further and further and I was listed on paper as the underdog but I always came to compete. So same thing as last year, I came to really compete."
Teammate Uchechi Obasi won the 400-meter dash. Another Hornet, Justin Davis, held off Willowbrook's Will Stout in the 300 hurdles. Those hurdlers had to run a second time, eight minutes later, when a timing complication forced a redo though they were nearly 200 meters into it.
That could have wilted Willowbrook hurdler Mohamed Aly. Like Addison Trail sophomore hurdler Hamza Kittaneh, Aly was in his third day of Ramadan, which in the Muslim faith forbids eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset.
"Usually I'm fine without the food, but it's the water," Aly said. "You can't drink anything. It's the water that kind of kills me, but I still try to put out my best effort."
He had enough left to return for his third race of the day, the 1,600 relay.
"It's after 8 o'clock. I usually just feast right now," he said.
Addison Trail's Dylan Moran, a sophomore, ran with the leaders all of the 3,200-meter run, finishing fourth. He returned for the 1,600 and it first looked like the workload was a little much. He kicked it into gear for a more respectable seventh-place finish.
"My coach at like the 250 (-meter) mark said, embrace the pain and just kind of go with it, and I sort of did," Moran said. "I realized at that moment I had to push through it, and I had to go with it. I wouldn't have done as well as I did if I didn't do that."