Boys track and field: Fallon, Batavia claim DKC indoor championship
When Jonah Fallon hit the gun lap in the 400-meter dash Saturday afternoon in Batavia, the tide of the DuKane Conference boys indoor track and field championship had turned for the worse against traditional state power Lake Park.
Fallon exploded over the final 200 meters to set a new field house record at Batavia in 49.94 seconds.
More importantly, the Fallon record for Batavia was soon followed by another flurry of exceptional performances by the remainder of the Bulldogs' state-hardened sprinters.
Fallon later anchored the Bulldogs' 1,600 relay to a celebratory icing of the Bulldogs' 130-98 victory over the Lancers.
St. Charles North (91 points) was third behind twin-event champion Otis Duncan; Wheaton Warrenville South (85) was fourth, followed by Wheaton North (79) and St. Charles East (66).
Unlike the other six programs, neither seventh-place Geneva nor eighth-place Glenbard North produced any relay or individual champions.
"I come from a distance background," said Fallon, a member of the Bulldogs' Class 3A 1,600 relay runner-up unit last spring. "I run a lot of 800s and 400s. Coach (Dennis) Piron always tells us to go out super hard."
Jacob Hohmann, one of two returnees on the Bulldogs' state-championship 800 relay, powered the Batavia sprinters to another relay title in 1:32.58.
"I think we can be right there to win another state championship," Hohmann said.
The Lancers were led by their historically strong field-event athletes as senior Desmond Horton swept the long and triple jumps with respective efforts of 22 feet, 8.5 inches and 45-10.
"I was trying to get a new personal record,," said Horton, state runner-up in the triple jump last season. "I am feeling confident going into the outdoor season."
Cooper Cerese appeared to have a certain fifth field title for the Lancers with his 59-9 best-mark in the shot put.
But on the last of his six throws, St. Charles North senior Paolo Gennarelli, third last year in Charleston, eclipsed the Lancers' senior by two inches.
"I didn't know how far it went," Gennarelli said. "I didn't see it land, but after I heard the mark I was ecstatic."
The North Stars' Otis Duncan was unquestionably the quickest man in the conference on Saturday afternoon.
The senior defeated WW South all-state sprinter Reece Young by six one-hundredths of a second to win the 55 dash in 6.4 seconds; Duncan later doubled his gold medal count with the title at 200 meters in 22.21.
"I'm a track and field guy; it's my bread and butter," said Duncan, who will join his classmate Gennarelli at West Point in the fall. "The 200 is my better event with my top-end speed."
"I just need to work on my blocks," Young said.
Michael Atkins' quest to deny Micah Wilson a second league championship in a distance race fell short by a tenth of a second.
The WW South senior was shoulder to shoulder with Wilson, the Wisconsin-bound St. Charles East reigning state champion at 3,200 meters, on the final lap of the 1,600.
But Wilson earned a second conference title with a dramatic one-tenth victory over Atkins in 4:23.67.
"At the bell lap I thought I gapped him," Atkiins said. "I really wanted it. That's what makes track fun - races like that."
Wheaton North senior Ryan Shreiner, an Iowa recruit, won his specialty event - the 800 run, where he was fourth last spring - in 1:57.2.
"I was going for a school record but can't complain about a conference championship," Schreinder said.
Runner-up Lake Park added individual titles from Aidan Killmer (55 hurdles), Mason Vourazeris (high jump) and Kyle Varga (pole vault).