Boys track and field: It's time to go all out
CHARLESTON - Naperville Central's Thomas Shilgalis seemed incredulous when asked if he'd saved energy for Saturday.
"Hold back? I'm not holding anything back for tomorrow," the Michigan-bound senior said.
In the first hot day many athletes at Friday's Class 2A and Class 3A preliminaries of the 125th boys track and field state finals had withstood this season, typical at Eastern Illinois University's O'Brien Field, Shilgalis was smiling.
He'd won his heat of the Class 3A 800-meter dash with the fastest overall time, 1 minute, 56.10 seconds. A while later he ran the sixth-fastest 1,600-meter time to reach Saturday's finals in that, too.
Glenbard West's Will O'Brien, who won his 800 heat at 1:57.45 to join Shilgalis in the finals, could vouch for the conditions.
"To run an 800 hard in this weather is pretty hard. It's also pretty windy on the front stretch, so that definitely played a factor as well," O'Brien said.
Shilgalis revealed he was going to add another race.
"Tomorrow my plan is to run the four-by-eight," he said. "Our team (Aaron Benson, Patrick Julian, Seth Klein-Collins, Thomas Codo) got fourth in the heat, fourth overall, so they're looking really strong without me. So I'll be running the four-by-eight tomorrow, looking to win it."
Several Class 3A teams look to pressure favorites Homewood-Flossmoor and Crete-Monee, which set a state record in the 400-meter relay at 40.86 seconds. DuPage County schools Wheaton Warrenville South, Wheaton North and Glenbard West have multiple finalists, as does defending champion Neuqua Valley.
"This year our main focus was just get as many athletes down here as we could to be able to score as many possible points as we could down here and hopefully get up in the top three and win another trophy like last year," Wildcats junior Patrick Hoffmann said after joining Kel Foley, Jonah Covarrubias and Donovan Turner on an advancing 1,600-meter relay. That field will include Wheaton North's Ryan Schreiner, Briggs Cecil, Jimmy Vercoe and Eli Odell.
Odell advanced in the 300 hurdles along with teammate Josh James. James will run in the finals of both the 110 and 300 hurdles, along with Neuqua's Turner.
"Our main perspective coming out here was to give it all we had, to really put up a heck of a fight - which I think we're actually executing pretty well right now," Turner said.
Of the top four sprinters from the York sectional, only Purdue walk-on Adam Wiatr of Lake Park was unable to advance out of preliminaries in the 100- and 200-meter sprints. WW South's Cedric Rowzee and Glenbard West's Tyquan Cox each won their heats, and Glenbard North's Xavier Curtis took second in his.
Cox was a busy bee early on. He started at long jump, joined the Hilltoppers' 400 relay, went back to long jump and won his heat of the 100 within an hour. He qualified in all.
"It's just all about how you condition for it," Cox said. "If you're capable of doing you can do it. I thought I was capable of doing it. It wasn't that bad."
Metea Valley's Pryce Giwa-Osagie, the No. 1 high jump seed, was among nine jumpers who cleared 6 feet, 4 inches to reach the finals. Teammate Virgil Steward ran with Eden Sweeney, Temi Osobamiro and Nikola Maric on a qualifying 800 relay. Steward wasn't quite buying Mustangs coach Aaron Lewis' calming advice that this was "just a regular meet."
"Of course not," Steward said. "The atmosphere's a lot different than a regular, old meet. But it definitely helps you run faster."
Neuqua's Matt Appel extended his own school shot put record to 58-9; he's also seeded second in discus, where Wheaton North's Rick Hummel made finals at 158-3 on his final attempt.
In Class 2A, St. Francis' Dan Weizeorick advanced in the 1,600 as did Spartan Jon Aquino in the 800 with the third-fastest time, 1:58.78. Both of them ran with Ben Bettag and Josh Winslow on a 3,200-meter relay that ran Class 2A's second-fastest time, 8:09.61.
This is St. Francis coach Scott Nelson's final track season. Aquino aims to make it memorable.
"He's meant everything. He's meant a lot," Aquino said. "I've been running for him since I was a freshman, came (downstate) as a sophomore. I intended to make it to the finals for the 800. I had to learn my lesson. But he's taught me to keep fighting. Now I'm here."