HP Continues To Show Improvement

The 2014 Cross Country Team took its annual early season trip to Peoria to compete in the First To The Finish Invite.  It was a great weekend in which the Giants became a closer, more focused, and overall better team because of this key experience.   The highlight was of course racing against some of the best teams and individuals in the state.    

The varsity race went out fast and we had two runners up near the front pack.   Senior Ben Casey ran an superb race as he battled with the chase pack after the top two runners pulled away.   He was able to finish in 6th place with a very fast early season time of 14:47.8.   This was just 3.6 seconds out of 3rd place.   His time is also the fastest non-State Meet time ever on this course by a Highland Park runner.  Junior Brett Davidson battled tough but was not able to hold the pace with the chase pack into the 3rd mile.  He did have a strong last 400 meters to finish in 33rd place with a time of 15:13.0.  This is the 14th fastest time ever run on the Detweiller Park course by a Highland Park runner and is 52 seconds faster then what he ran last year.     This is a very strong 1-2  that can help this team make some noise in the championship part of the season.

The next runner in for HP was sophomore Jonathan Rosenfeld.   He ran 16:00.7 to take 118th.   His time was 1:21 faster then what he ran in Peoria last year early in the season.   Rosenfeld continues to show outstanding toughness and reliability for a sophomore as he has been the team's 3rd fastest runner in every meet this season.    The team needs more runners closer to Rosenfeld to get to the next level.  

Senior Andrew Huddleston was the next finisher for the team.  He took 173rd running 16:22.5 for the three mile course.   The next fastest time on the day was senior Eddie Herz who ran in the Open Race.   He finished in 16:27.8 to take 23rd place and medal in the open race.

The next two fastest time were turned in by two freshmen who had earned spots to run in the varsity race.   Nate Amster ran 16:33.9 and Fitz Laurie ran 16:38.2.   These are two outstanding times for freshmen.   Amster and Laurie have shown great composure and instincts in all of their races this season.   Look for them to continue to improve and help this team get better and reach their goals.

Also finishing under 17 minutes were sophomore Josh Drummond (16:54.7) and senior Kevin Merkel (16:56.8).    

The meet included numerous strong performances by members of the HP team.   In addition to Rosenfeld, six other runners had over one minute improvements from the invite in Peoria last year in the early season:    Sophomores Matthew Casey (17:11.9, -2:19)  Charlie Skurie (17:14.3, -3:09), Juan Estela (17:33.9, -1:55), Ian Goldberg (18:33.4, -1:03), Hayden Schott (18:34.4, -1:36), and senior Peter Biondi (18:32.3, -1:39).

Highland Park showed some nice depth with 20 runners under 18 minutes and 9 of those under 17 minutes.   The team knows we need to continue to improve by working hard and taking care of all of the details.