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Memories of last year push Reiser to Palatine Invite title

Published by
DyeStatIL.com   Sep 28th 2014, 3:57pm
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St. Louis University edges Loyola Academy by five points for team title

 

By Michael Newman

[email protected]

 

Palatine, Ill – The memories still lingered in the mind of Jesse Reiser (McHenry HS) of what happened in the race last year at Deer Grove East. Reiser pushed the pace most of the race only to be passed by York’s Alex Bashqawai at the end of the race. With the conditions for this year’s Palatine Invitational just as warm as a year ago, it was the experience that he went through that was the difference with him winning the individual race Saturday morning.

 

No one wanted to take the lead on this muggy morning in Palatine. Jake and Luke Hoffert (Yorkville HS) tucked in behind Reiser as Oakwood’s Jon Davis reluctantly led a pack of 20 runners as they went through the first mile in a leisurely 4:54. The pack narrowed down to ten runners as Graham Brown (Palatine HS), Andy Weber and Daniel Santino (St. Ignatius, Chicago), Matt Plowman (York HS, Elmhurst), and David Rodriguez (Hersey HS, Arlington Heights) made their turn towards the two mile. Reiser was leading looking relaxed just waiting to make his move.

 

“The goal was just to stay with Jesse,” Jake Hoffert said. “Those surges he made were a killer. He made a move on the turn at a mile and a half and we caught up with him”

 

It was the move just after two miles that defined the race and broke open the pack. “He just put his head down and went,” added Matt Plowman.

 

Reiser looked controlled as he came down the final straightaway. There was still a little uneasiness as he pushed to the finish. “I did not know what they (Jake & Luke) were going to do in that last mile,” Reiser said after the race. “I just made a gut call in that last 600 and went.”

 

The surge did the trick as he finished in 14:38.7 just a second and a half ahead of Jake Hoffert. He missed Jack Driggs’ course record of 14:33 by five seconds. Considering the adverse conditions that he had to run through, it was an impressive run.

 

Only seven runners were able to go under 15:00 minutes on this sweltering course. Luke Hoffert finished three seconds behind his brother in third. David Rodriguez finished fourth (14:49) with another strong race after a great run at Peoria a week ago. Graham Brown (Palatine HS) ran better compared to his Peoria race finishing in fifth (14:54). Jon Davis and Matt Periera (Lake Zurich HS) finished within a second of each other in sixth and seventh.

 

The forecast for the team competition was up for grabs coming into the race. It was the same way throughout it as no one team had a clear advantage through the first two miles. It was a final move by St. Louis University in the last half mile that was the difference. The Junior Bilikens, paced by a 10-13 finish by Matthew Hennessey and Dustan Davidson, won the team championship with a whopping 172 points. It did not matter how high the scores were on this day, the defending Class 4 champions in Missouri were the ones on top.

 

“Before we were on a slight incline I was so tired and I wanted it to be done,” said Hennessey. “When we got to the downhill at the finish I started to pick it up and felt a lot better.”

 

“This was our fifth year coming here. We are still seven weeks out from our state meet and we come here to get experience in a big field and fast field and kind of getting our guys used to what they will be seeing in November.” Coach Joe Porter said. “We just wanted to get into position. Typically the Illinois first mile is a little faster than a Missouri first mile. We wanted them to get the feel of that in going out a little faster. We felt it was wide open coming into this race. There were a lot of good teams here. We felt we were in a good spot and fighting at the finish.”

 

This year’s team finish was one of the tightest ever at the Palatine Invitational. It was the highest point total for a team to win. How close was it? Six schools were within 20 points of each other.

 

#6 Loyola Academy was the top Illinois school in the field finishing second only five points back. The performance is noticeable because usual top runner Christian Swenson was a last minute decision to run in this race. “We’ve been fighting injuries for weeks now. We thought pretty hard not running Swenson. Last night, we decided not to,” said Loyola Coach Dan Seeberg. “We can into this meet with a lot of trepidation. We just wanted to get through it and move on.”

 

Swenson was given the go ahead to run by Loyola’s trainer and it paid off for the Ramblers. Jack Carroll was the first runner in placing eighth. Paolo Tiongson (29th), Swenson (32nd), and Patrick Reilly-Hayward (33rd) gave Seeberg a strong 2-4 pack separated by only three seconds. Michael Banks was their fifth runner placing 80th. Their overall split on five runners was 69 seconds.

 

“We did not want to get caught up too much in the hype,” added Seeberg. “It’s a great meet. We love it. You can easily get too caught up about that and forget about your season.”

 

#5 New Trier was another five points back in third place. Led by the tenth place finish by Josh Rosenkranz, the Trevians continue to improve running a 58 second split on five runners. Yorkville and St. Xavier Kentucky both had 188 points. The defending 2A state champions were awarded fourth based on their sixth runner. The Foxes, along with the 2-3 finish by Jake and Luke Hoffert, ran a good pack race within their 3-7 runners. They only had a 37 second split within that pack.

 

Spencer Hayden led Kentucky’s top ranked team with a ninth place finish. “Last week with 600 runners at Trinity Valkyre, we could not run well as pack. We wanted to concentrate in what we know pack running,” said St. Xavier coach Chuck Medley. “We just used Coach Newton’s philosophy on letter all the other runners go out fast and catch them at the end. If we stayed pack we were going to have a good day today. Our pack on 2-5 today was only eleven seconds which helped us out a lot.

 

St. Ignatius was the sixth team in this tight pack scoring 192 points only 20 points behind team champion St. Louis University. Daniel Santino and Andrew Weber led the Wolfpack with a 16-18 finish. “We think it was a pretty good bad race,” said St. Ignatius coach Ed Ernst. “Our guys are very disappointed. We ran two of our runners that were 5-7 in Peoria in our freshman race. So there is a little hope in that. But these are our upperclassmen and they are the guys that have to do it.”

 

What was a surprise to some was the eleventh place finish of traditional power York. Matt Plowman was their top finisher in 12th, but there was a big gap after that. The Dukes were without usual #2 runner Devin Davies who was held out of the race as a precautionary measure to an injury. Never the less, it was the worst finish by a York team since it started coming to this meet in the mid 90’s. There is some hope for this program in that they had two winners in the lower level. Liam Hill won the sophomore race and Charlie Kern won the freshman race breaking the meet record by seven seconds.

 



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