HP Varsity Sweeps First Quad

The goal at the first quad meet of the season was simple...win.    The varsity were able to beat MW, GBN, and DF (18-45, 18-44, and 21-36).  Our freshmen raced tough in the frosh-soph race and beat MW and GBN (16-47 and 17-43) but lost a close battle to DF (29-27).   

The frosh-soph race got out with a pack of Highland Park freshmen near the front.   Just after the 400 mark, half of the race went the wrong way.   They were able to get back on course and work their way into position after that.   In the end the freshmen lost by just 2 points to a strong frosh-soph squad from Deerfield.   HP had four runners in the top ten taking 1,3,5, and 9 (Jonathan Rosenfeld, Josh Drummond, Matthew Drummond, and David Heller), but that was not enough to beat all three of the other schools.    Look for these freshmen to continue to improve and have great success in some of the freshmen only races at invites later in the season.    The future looks bright for Highland Park Cross Country!

The leaders of the varsity race went out at a conservative pace and the Giants raced to position.   Senior Angel Estrada and junior Ben Casey were able to pull away from Maine West's number one runner to finish 1-2 (15:22 and 15:24) for the 6th and 7th fastest times ever run on the three mile course.   Highland Park's next three finishers were in 7th, 8th and 9th.  Those places went to sophomore Brett Davidson (16:34) who continues to improve each meet, senior Griffin Bojan (16:43) who had his best race of the season, and senior Jeremy Bloom (16:45) who has been strong and consistent all season for the Giants.   Having five runners in the top nine allowed Highland Park to sweep the quad and take the first step towards winning the conference championship.  The team knows that they need more help for Estrada and Casey up front if they are going to win a conference championship and get back to the state meet.  The coaches are looking for team members to step up at Peoria this weekend and run some fast times!

Many other runners on the team had breakthrough performances.   Two of the most notable ones were junior Sam Tiemeyer who broke 20 minutes for the first time running 19:57 as he also PR'd through the first mile in 6:00 and senior Luis Jaramillo who continues to show that dedication and hard work pays off as he ran his fastest 3 mile time of 20:45 and also PR'd through the first mile running 6:06.