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York in command at Palatine InvitationalPublished by
Bashqawi outkicks Reiser for individual win; Different faces up front for Palatine in Girls win; O’Brien takes individual title back to Kentucky
By Michael Newman
Palatine, Ill --- The fog lifted off of the fields of Deer Grove East Forest Preserve just as the gun was fired for the Boys Freshman race. Walking around the park before the meet started was deceptive to those who were to run in the Palatine Invitational. “It felt great to walk around before the start of the race,” said Barrington’s Konrad Eiring said after the Boys Varsity race. “But when you started, man could you feel the heat.”
The heat did not seem to bother the York Boys Team and the Palatine Girls Team that won the varsity races. There were several athletes that were treated for heat exhaustion after the temperatures climbed to close to eighty degrees with the humidity close to 65% by the time the Boys Varsity race started.
Boys Race The face of the varsity race changed when Yorkville runners Jake & Luke Hoffert along with Nolan Tweedy were held out of the meet as a precautionary move due to some small lingering injuries. Hersey’s #2 runner Andy Philipose was in the emergency room Friday evening due to an ear infection and did not compete.
It left Jesse Reiser (McHenry HS) the runner that everyone would be watching in the front. He took command early in the race rolling through the first mile in 4:45. Graham Brown (Palatine HS) and Ryan Pitner (Central HS, Crystal Lake) ran together four seconds behind Reiser. York’s pack of four runners led by Nathan Mroz were tucked back in the pack near fifteenth place as they went by the mile in 4:54. It was a similar strategy that they used the week before at Detweiller Park. This time, they were further up in the race pack.
It would be in the next half mile that the Dukes would start to make their move on Reiser. Mroz, Alex Bashqawi, Kyle Mattes, and Matt Plowman at the turn around were only there seconds and closing the gap on Reiser. The heat was taking effect on the McHenry junior as the gap continued to close. By the two mile that Reiser went through in 9:49, all four York runners were on the shoulder of Reiser. Alongside at that point was Sam Oh (Stevenson HS, Lincolnshire) and Chase Silverman (New Trier HS, Winnetka)
“We used the same strategy that we did at PND,” said Mroz. “We went out under control for the first mile, picked up the second, then it was every man for themselves.”
The pace quickened in the next half with Reiser, Mroz, Bashqawi, Mattes, and Oh moving away from the other runners. The pack thinned out by the time that they got to 800 meters to go as it was Reiser holding off Mroz and Bashqawi. In the last 200 meters, Bashqawi made a move that Reiser could not respond to. The York senior crossed the line a little over a second ahead of Reiser. Mroz was close behind in third. “I just felt good at the end,” said Bashqawi after his run.
“My strategy is to usually go out with my guts and finish the race as hard as I can,” said Reiser after the race. “Today I kind of didn’t work out. York picked on me the last mile, made their move with 800 meters to go and I lost it. I have to learn from these mistakes.”
Sam Oh had a great race and finished fourth. Jack Carpenter (Maine South HS, Park Ridge) made a move in the last mile to move up into fifth.
York placed five runners in the first twenty-five to easily win the Boys team championship. Along with the 1-3 finish by Bashqawi and Mroz, Kyle Mattes finished 6th, Matt Plowman finished 14th, and sophomore Jon May finished 25th for the Dukes. “I thought our varsity was terrific. We had a meet against Downers Grove North and Lyons on Thursday so we had to come back here on Saturday,” Coach Joe Newton said afterwards. “The boys ran good today. I am joyful.”
St. Xavier of Louisville last year with a senior based team that won the varsity race in this meet. This was supposed to be a year of rebuilding, but Coach Chuck Medley’s team just reloaded. Their second place finish Saturday is evidence of that. “We ran real well today. We ran better than we did last week,” Medley said. “From 1 to 5 we were 43 seconds. I think we can get closer. When we do that, we will be a team that they will be thinking of us again.” Chris Striegel was the lead runner for St. Xavier finishing seventh.
Despite the fact that Hersey was without Philipose, the Huskies still managed to get a third place finish only five points behind St. Xavier. “The goal was to have David Rodriguez up front and our 2-5 to stick together and move throughout the race,” Jay Renaud stated. “Our split on those guys was 8 seconds today. That is what we need.” Rodriguez, who suffered stomach cramps the second mile, rebounded to finish twelfth to lead his team.
One record was broken and it was during the first race of the day. Matt Perriera (Lake Zurich HS) broke away early in the race and ran 12:59.5 to break the meet record set by both Nathan Mroz and Graham Brown by six seconds.
Girls Race Regardless of the fact that Palatine eked out a win in the varsity race, Pirates’ coach Joe Parks looked at the results in disbelief that his team won the meet. “We’ve got to get faster,” Parks said. “We are just not running fast enough. We had a good pack. We had some girls move up a little bit fortunately but it was ugly overall.”
The Pirates won despite not having a runner in the top ten. It was there twelve second split on their first five runners that made the difference. Kara Burton, who was Palatine’s seventh runner last week at Peoria stepped up Saturday to finish 15th as the Lady Pirates first runner. “Kara Burton ran a phenomenal race and really stepped up today,” Parks added. “We talked about the opportunity of having some girls step up. If she had not done that, we would have been in big trouble.”
Palatine’s margin of victory was only twelve points ahead of 2012 team champion Assumption. The Louisville school placed two runners in the top ten with Emily Bean (8th) and Kenzley Defler (10th) leading the way. Coach Barry Haworth was without the services of two of last year’s top runners, Katherine Receiver and Bailey Davis. Both runners, according to Haworth, are still coming back from injuries and ran in the Girls JV race. Two other out of state schools populated the top five. Centerville (OH) finished third with 144 points. Davies County (KY) finished fifth with 186 points. Wheaton-Warrenville South, led by the ninth place finish by Sara Atkins, finished fourth with 157 points.
The individual race followed form for the most part…after it started. The race was recalled twice due to a timing malfunction. Once it started, Skyler Bollinger (Yorkville HS) and Kaitlyn Ko (Buffalo Grove HS) were side by side going past the first mile. Following close behind was Whitney O’Bryan (Daviess County, Owensboro KY) and Freshman Brooke Wilson (Prospect HS, Mt. Prospect). The four went through that point approximately at 5:45. In the second mile, O’Bryan made her move to take the lead. Bollinger started to drop back before the two mile point, but Ko held on. They passed the 2 mile in 11:38 and O’Bryan was looking to extend the lead further…which she did. O’Bryan won the race by five seconds over Ko running 17:20.6 for the three mile course.
“I really didn’t have a strategy coming in. I just wanted to test the waters to see where I was,” O’Bryan said. “At the mile and a half, I felt the pace slowing down. I thought I had nothing to lose and took a gamble and go for it.”
“I knew there was going to be a tough competition today,” Ko said. “I just wanted to go out and run my race and see what I could do.”
This was Yorkville’s first appearance at this meet. They came into the meet a little banged up with a few injuries/illnesses that kept a few of their key runners out. The biggest of which was the loss for the season of all-state runner Summer Pierson. Led by Bollinger’s sixth place finish, the Lady Foxes finished sixth. “We’ve had a few injuries lately but we are building back up,” Bollinger said. “We should be strong for state hopefully when they get back.”
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