CSL NORTH VARSITY CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS!

The Giants went into the meet with confidence and focus trying to bring home a conference championship.   It was not a perfect meet for us, but like the Deerfield Duel meet we had a variety of guys step up when we needed it.   Highland Park had 6 individual champions and 1 relay championship!   Those first places along with a variety of other strong performances helped show how good our team is as we won with 129.33 points to Niles North with 106 points.   The coaching staff also saw many places in which we can and must do better if we are going to win an outdoor championship.   Mistakes have to be fixed, team members need to get healthy, more guys needed to be able to have quality performances in multiple events, and most importantly we have to keep working hard to improve all around as individuals to help make us a better team.  The target is now on our back and the rest of the conference is trying to figure out ways to beat us.    Every team member needs to be fully committed this entire spring to high level training and taking care of all of the details to make sure we have everyone healthy and ready to go for the end of the season (Conference, Sectionals, and State)!

Field Events:   The field events really got us off to a great start!   

Long Jump:  Senior Shealtial Isreal scored big points in the field.   He got a 19'4.5" to take 3rd in the LJ.

High Jump:  Isreal won as he cleared 5'8" and junior Rock Cerant got a big 3rd place with 5'6".

Triple Jump:  Isreal was able to get 6th with a jump of 37'6".

Shot Put:   The throwers came up big as senior Bryan Fiarenza took 4th 44'6" and junior Eddie Smoliak was 5th 43'9".

Pole Vault:  After his strong performance in the shot put, Smoliak won the pole vault clearing a personal best 13'6".  This puts him on the Highland Park High School All-Time Top 10 Indoor list tied with several others.   Senior Alec Deer tied for 4th at 11'6".

Track Events:   

4X800 Meter Relay:   Our guys raced tough in this event.   We had four juniors that produced an exciting race.   Dylan Kahn led off.   Despite going out too slow, he battled back the second 400 and put us in pretty good position for the first hand off to Andrew Huddleston.   Huddleston took off and ran an fantastic leg (2:09.5) to keep us in a good position well ahead off 4th place.   Next up, we need a team member to step into a role despite this event not being their strength and Evan Lissoos did that.  He battled tough and kept the team in close enough contact with the 3rd place team to give our anchor leg, Kevin Merkel a chance.   Merkel got out well and was able to get us into 3rd place.  The 4th place team came up on him  on the back stretch, but Merkel was able to find that extra gear at the end and hold them off (2:12.6) and take 3rd (8:58.6) by 3 tenths of a second.

3200 Meter Run:   Senior James Rector put himself in position throughout the first part of the race to score some quality points for the team.   As the race picked up he faded back and eventually found himself in 4th with 5th place closing, 3rd place pulling away, and just a few laps to go.   Then things clicked.  Rector realized what was happening and dug down deep and started to close on 3rd place.  Coming into the final curve, he made a huge move to fly by the DF kid in 3rd as they were both lapping another runner and Rector left him behind and took 3rd in 10:20.2.   This was a great example of pushing yourself in a race when things get painful and at the end wanting it more then the other guy.

55 Meter High Hurdles:   We knew the hurdle events could be big points for us and our hurdlers did not disappoint.   Senior Benjy Rogin beat his own school record as he won with a 7.5 and sophomore Ryan Kriozere broke his own sophomore record as he took 3rd in 7.8. 

50 Meter Dash:  Junior Sammy Coan stepped up big for the team as he took 5th place with big personal best of 6.3.

800 Meter Run:  Senior Griffin Bojan led the race from the start.   He ran with great confidence.  At the start of the final lap a kid from MW tried to pass, but Bojan would not let him.   Then, a NN kid made his move passing the MW kid and trying to move up on Bojan but could not do so.   Bojan took 1st in 2:05.9.   Senior Jeremy Bloom had a solid race as he ended up running by himself for a majority of the race to take 4th in 2:10.5.

4X160 Meter Relay:   HP took second with a solid 1:17.5 time.   (Senior Jarae Ward, Rogin, Coan, Cerant).

55 Meter Low Hurdles:   Once again Rogin and Kriozere took 1st and 3rd (7.3 and 7.6)! 

1600 Meter Run:   Junior Ben Casey took the lead from the start and never relinquished it.   He pushed the pace and was able to pull away for the solid win.   This was a great confidence builder for Casey going into the outdoor season.   He finished in 4:35.0.

4X400 Meter Relay:  Kriozere struggled a bit on the lead off with a :57.5 but had us close enough for Bloom on the second leg as he had a big kick to improve our position (:55.4).   Junior Deven Greenleaf was next and despite not feeling well went out and attacked the race as soon as he got the baton (:55.3).   He tightened up some at the end but had us in range of the leader NN as he handed of to Rogin.  Within a lap Rogin gave us the lead and continued to push as he pulled away and gave HP the victory (:53.7) in 3:42.1.