Boys cross country: Lake Zurich, Palatine's Jacobo take regional crowns
Lake Zurich junior Jake Myers took a consistent approach to Saturday's Class 3A Palatine cross country regional meet at Deer Grove East Forest Preserve in Palatine.
"I felt really relaxed today," aid Myers." This course was great. I need to push the first and second miles - that's been my issue in past races - I always have the last mile. I just went out and pushed myself today."
The outstanding performance from Myers (2nd individually in time of 15:03), along with teammates Jack Gilboy, Patrick Hart, Corey Brend and Danny Burns led the Bears to a regional winning performance.
LZ will move on to next Saturday's Hoffman Estates sectional as Gilboy was fifth overall with a 15:27, Hart took eighth at 15:34, Brend (15:40) was 10th and Burns (15:41) grabbed 11th place.
Senior Richard Jacobo of host Palatine, who finished first individually in 15:01, said he was very impressed with the effort of his teammates Saturday.
"We ran well today," said Jacobo. "At the U-turn we had a bunch of guys packed together and they were running pretty strong." We didn't really want to put the hammer down. "We've got a lot of big races coming up."
Palatine (3rd place, 80 points) will advance to Hoffman as a team, as will four other squads - Barrington (2nd, 76), McHenry (4th, 83), Cary-Grove (5th, 162) and Jacobs (6th, 176).
"We survived," said Jacobs coach Kevin Christian. "Loved the conditions and loved the course and the competition. This is about as good as it gets for a regional. "Our number 1 runner has been out for a few weeks, so we've been a totally different team. We made it by 2 points, but when you advance it's all positive vibes. It means another meet and we get to run at sectionals."
Patrick Furlong (3rd individually in 15:17) led the way for the Broncos; Maxum Caesar (4th) had the best time for Cary-Grove at 15:21; while Peter Tomson (30th, 16:05) paced Jacobs.
While not among the qualifiers, Daniel Montoya led Dundee-Crown with a 16:32.
"Everything was just surreal," said Montoya. "I planned to run a16:45 with the same mileage every single mile, but I was ahead of that pace so I said to myself 'if I don't kick now, I'm never going to kick'. I looked at the guy in front of me and knew I needed to pass him."
There were five individual qualifiers to sectionals: Colton Romig of Grant (15:44), Grant Wasielewski of Buffalo Grove (15:48), Tyler Matsuda from the Bison (15:49), Justin Splitt of Grant (15:58) and Diego Giron of Round Lake in a time of 16:13.
Other stellar runs at Deer Grove came from Barrington's Ben Deweerdt (6th, 15:33) and Ian Barnes of Cary-Grove (7th at 15:34).
Palatine took the number 14, 15 and 16 individual placements with James Spencer, Brandon Waller and Andrew Duran.