●10th straight Hinsdale South team to qualify for Sectionals ●Congrats to Julian Watson, 2X Regional Champ! We have now had individual champions in 5 of the last 6 Regional meets ●2nd mile split looks long and 3rd short, but gives an indication on how runners progressed during race ●Good job in the rain and mud
●Huge improvements from early season--look at obnoxious course bests!! ●Some breakthrough performances, and 7 top-16 finishes (Umair great race but just misses). Congrats Julian, Josh, Quartus, Adam, Aaron, Kayden, and Anthony! ●Average course best among 23 runners: 1:56!! ●2nd place finish by freshmen ties best since I’ve been here with 2013 team; 3rd place jv finish ties best with 2014 &15; 3rd place varsity behind only 2nd place finishes in 2015 & 2016, tied with 2014. Great team day!!
Peoria High Invite; 10/5/19; DetweillerPark, Peoria; 57 degrees, breezy
●19th place out of 45 teams ●Julian 23rd All-Time on Hinsdale South Detweiller List!
4800 Meter Time Trial; 10/3/19; Hinsdale South Track; 65 degrees, 10 mph wind
Rock River Run, Hoover Park Sterling; 9/28/19; 63 degrees, windy, muddy, wet
This morning was an enjoyable one in Sterling. The cool weather was offset by very muddy, challenging conditions, but the team had fun running "real cross country" and competed well. Congrats to Julian Watson, Adam Fournier, and Aaron Koehler for medaling! The fresh/soph team, especially competed well and was only 50 points from a team trophy despite finishing 10th in a tightly packed team race. However, if only the freshmen were scored for each team, we would have placed 4th! The future is bright.
At KLM 9/23/19; Leyden 25, HS 31; Willowbrook 23, HS 32; 73 degrees, sunny, windy, very soft ground and long grass.
Peoria Notre Dame Richard Spring Invite; 9/21/19; DetweillerPark; 70-75 degrees, humid, breezy
Saturday's meet was a big success at Detweiller Park in Peoria. We took advantage of pretty good weather and course conditions and ran some amazing races! 13 of 23 runners ran all-time personal bests (by an average improvement of 1:38!) and 10 more ran season bests. The freshmen, in particular, were impressive, with the 9 finishers lowering their personal best times by an average of over 2 minutes!! Kacper Kwicien was the big winner, lowering his best by 4 minutes and 4 seconds. That's amazing! Although we were pretty far back in the pack, this is the most competitive meet outside of the 3A State meet in the entire cross country season around the state, so no worries. Even our state meet will be far less competitive.
Hornet Red Devil Invite; 9/7/19; KLM Park; 70-75 degrees, sunny
●Good overall first invitational of the year; 14 of 17 in varsity with season bests (SB) and 11 of 17 with course bests at KLM (CB) ●Top times for Hinsdale South 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th runners in the freshman race since I’ve been coaching at this meet---great race for the freshmen!! ●Julian Watson 16:01 good for 22nd on all-time team KLM list, 5th fastest since I’ve been coaching here (Charlie Nodus, Roman Drabchuk, Brett Haffner, Chris Joseph) ●Good starting point--we will improve greatly through season
Tuesday, August 27 - Downers Grove South Quad
Tuesday was an excellent 1st meet. My only worry every year since we’ve been starting with this meet is that I don’t want us to compare ourselves too much with Downers Grove South and Naperville Central. We have had years when our top 5 can compete with their top 5, but our size school just simply won’t compete with the depth of strong cross country programs in schools that size (which is many of the schools around us). The Naperville Central coach was telling me that they have 30 freshmen this year, and most of them had already been running for a couple of years. So, no one should worry about the fact that we were beaten yesterday by those teams.
Having said that, we are a very young team and, with youth, will come improvement. 3 of our top 8 yesterday were 1st year high school cross country runners (2 freshmen + Isiah) and 2 more are 2nd year (Quartus and Julian). So even our varsity is new to the sport. The magic formula to success is to keep showing up, keep working, do things right, and believe in the system. Quartus and Jake Schilling are great examples. Quartus last year ran 20:38 at this meet and did not break 19 minutes all year. He broke 19 at Detweiller last month and ran about 90 seconds faster than last year at this meet. Jake ran an all-time personal best yesterday in his 1st meet of the season, and was our 7th man overall after never being close last year. Both of these young men have been consistent and simply trained all year long. I have nothing against those who are seasonal cross country runners, running at practice mid-August through October, but they will not improve like this. Having 11 freshmen gives us a great future IF they take the approach of Quartus and Jake (and Julian and Nick, etc.). 2 years from now we will look more like our opponents yesterday than ourselves. And now, EVERYONE on the team has a starting point on which to improve. I will take our record of in-season improvement over any program in the state from year to year, so I am excited to see it. I am providing links to our results from yesterday and our overall results grid.