Davidson Wins Libertyville Invite

The Libertyville Invite is run on a challenging course which was a great tune-up for our first CSL quad meet of the season at Sunset Woods Park on Tuesday.   We had many individuals that ran outstanding races and some that struggled.    Those that had an off race will look to bounce back on Tuesday and those that ran well will be trying to continue to perform at a high level.    

The first race was the frosh-soph race.    We ran our top freshmen and sophomores down to give them a chance to see how they measure up against their age groups and give some of our other junior and senior varsity runners an opportunity to see what they could do in a varsity invite.   Sophomore Jonathan Rosenfeld and freshmen Nate Amster got out well and were in the lead pack as they went through the mile with Amster leading.   As they passed the two mile, Rosenfeld and a New Trier runner had already started to build a gap on the rest of the field as Amster was battling two runners from prospect for the 3rd-5th spots.    As the top two runners hit the final uphill towards the finish stride for stride, Rosenfeld made his big move and was able to put a small gap on the New Trier runner and then hold him off with his toughness down the final stretch to win the 3 mile race in 16:46.94.   Amster ended up in 5th place with a time of 17:20.79.   The next finisher for HP was Matthew Casey (17th, 18:10.88) who had a strong race as he continues to show his mental toughness each time he races.   Josh Drummond (26th, 18:29.26), Charlie Skurie (28th, 18:40.36), and Juan Estela (32nd, 18:48.68) were the next three finishers for the Giants.   The team finished in 3rd place behind Prospect and New Trier.   This young and talented team has a lot to look forward to over the next few years if they make the commitment to be ALL IN and out train their competition.   

The varsity race also had two HP runners in the lead pack from the start.   Junior Brett Davidson and senior Ben Casey were going to try to start to pull away from the competition after the mile.   Davidson made an aggressive move as they came up the hill before the two mile mark and started to gap the field.   Davidson was able to maintain his form and run well through to the finish to win the race by about 6 seconds in 16:09.98.   Casey struggled through a good portion of the third mile as he fell to 4th place, but regrouped for a final charge and was able to move up to 3rd place in 16:17.89 just 1 second behind 2nd place.   It was nice to see what Davidson is capable of when he is running well and executes a complete race plan.   It was also good to know that even when Casey is struggling in a race he has the mental toughness to push when he is hurting and will still battle for key points in a race.  Senior Andrew Huddleston was the only other Giant to medal in the varsity race as he took 24th in 17:15.72.   The rest of the varsity top seven was given an opportunity to step up and show what they could do for the team with our top sophomores and freshmen not in the race. Unfortunately, they did not respond how we had hoped.   Some got out too slow and some faded badly.   Those varsity runners are going to need to come ready to race hard on Tuesday at the quad meet knowing that our competition will be there ready to compete.  The varsity took 3rd place in the meet behind New Trier and Prospect.

In the Open Race the team was led by juniors Alejandro Gutierrez and Daniel Arias.   Gutierrez ran a strong race to take 15th in 18:28.37 as he continues to work hard and improve meet after meet.  Arias was able to have a strong finish to come in right behind his teammate in 18:29.51 for 16th place.