Regionals

October 25, 2008

IHSA Regionals

Adler Park, Libertyville, IL

A bittersweet day, for sure! First, a big congratulations to Noel Gonzalez, Keith Hamilton, and Trevor Dubois who qualified as individuals for the IHSA Sectional which will be held next Saturday at Busse Woods in Schaumburg!!! Also, the Girls team was able to run an excellent team race to capture Fourth Place and advance as a team! Great Job to both teams! The Girls race will be at 10:30am and the Boys at 11:30am. Please come out and support your runners!

Boys Race: The course was certainly in a lot worse shape today than it had been last week for conference. A deluge of rain over the last couple days left the course spongy and some portions were pretty muddy. It was a strange sight to only see 56 runners competing, as this was probably about as small as some of the dual meets we have run this year.

We held box 4, which was in the center of the 8 team starting line. I saw the girls race go off and Zion had been boxed in by the 100 meter mark, with both sides converging inwards. Before the race, I told the boys to make sure they got out fast the first 100-200 to prevent the same thing from happening. The race went off and our boys executed the first stretch to perfection. Our entire team was in the front half of the pack.

Throughout the race, I could see some of our runners struggling to maintain the early hard pace we had set. Our top four were running really well though as a solid pack. Those front four ended up finishing 22, 29, 21, 33 (I think?). Bonn, Jeff, and Austin gallantly brought up the rear. Bonn held on gamely in his first race back in weeks after suffering some sort of Bubonic Plague, which kept him from practice and school for a week. Our final three finished in 49, 51, 52 (?). As a team, we ended up finishing 7^th out of 8 teams.

All in all, I am especially proud of you guys. You have worked your butts off week in and week out for the last 2 months (not including summer miles). You are all developing into upstanding young men. I wish the Seniors, Jeff and Austin the best. Although I only was able to spend one season with you, it was an honor to run with and coach you.

Noel, Keith, and Trevor, see you at practice on Monday!

Those of you who are finished for the season, I am in the works of creating some sort of winter running club. I won’t be able to attend it (it’s against IHSA rules), but I’ll be sure to post more information on it here, when I’ve thought it through. REMEMBER, if you really want to achieve your potential in distance running, you MUST commit yourself to it year round. This is not a sport you can pick up for 2 months per year and expect to excel at.

P.S. – Mr. Hamilton, once again took some great pictures and I will be sure to post those on Monday, once I get them.

Name	Mile 1	Mile 2	Mile 3	Conference
Noel Gonzalez	5:22	11:24	17:34	17:00
Keith Hamilton	5:31	11:38	18:12	17:57
Trevor Dubois	5:41	11:59	18:04	18:06
Tim Athans	5:41	12:10	18:31	18:45
Bonn Busch	5:58	12:47	19:41
Jeff Huber	6:06	13:04	19:54	19:49
Austin Sears	6:09	13:04	20:02	19:42