Boys track and field: Kaneland's late surge nets Peterson title
Kaneland won only two events at the 50th Peterson Prep Invitational Friday, but the victories earned in the last two competitions of the meet clinched the top spot for the Knights.
Kaneland trailed first place St. Charles North by six points at the start of the 1,600, the second-to-last race of the night. Knights junior David Valkanov won the race to pull his squad closer to the top.
The Kaneland 1,600 relay team followed by winning the last event of the invitational to secure first place with 101 points.
Kaneland moved up the invitational from Saturday to Friday to take advantage of Friday's better weather.
St. Charles North, which had won first place in five events, finished third with 89 points.
Yorkville came in second tallying 93.33 points. Sophomore Brody Greyer took top honors for the Foxes in the 3,200 with a time of 10:14.38.
Lyons (81) and West Aurora (72) rounded out the top five.
"We had a lot of guys steps up tonight. We probably had three or four guys do four events total," said Kaneland coach Andy Drendel. "They knew what was at stake. We wanted to defend our own turf. We wanted to honor coach Peterson. We knew we had a chance if we went hard, and they did. I'm very proud of them."
Valkanov, a junior, won the 1,600 with a time of 4:33.20.
"I'm coming off from an injury right now. I really didn't care about the time just about the placement," Valkanov said. "I tried doing some strides at the curves and that led to the win."
In the 1,600 relay, Knights Palmer Behrend and Chris Ruchaj kept pace with the pack during the first two trips around the track. Teammate Trevor Neal pulled ahead during the third lap. After taking the baton from Neal, Logan Ehlers maintained the lead to win the race.
St. Charles North coach Kevin Harrington was pleased with his squad's third-place finish.
"It's April so we're just getting kids out running what they need to be running," the North Stars coach said. "Frankly, I'm kind of surprised to be in the mix the way we were. We had a lot of kids step up and do some nice things."
Bryce Thomas earned two of the North Stars' first-place medals by winning the 110 and 300 hurdles. He edged out Wheaton Academy's Canyon Roberts in the 110 hurdles.
"I had a pretty sloppy middle of the race. I got through the first three hurdles pretty fast, then I could feel him catching up on my inside shoulder," said Thomas. "I tried to get over the last two pretty low and I had a total horizontal lean at the end."
The North Stars also won the 400 relay.
North Stars senior Henry Warsaw won both the shot put and the discus.