HP Competes At EIU Showdown
Sunday, August 30 2015 - EIU ShowdownThe Highland Park boys cross country team opened up the 2015 season competing in the EIU Showdown at Green Valley Forest Preserve. Each of the teams that competed in this meet have at least one coach that ran cross country at Eastern Illinois University (Coach Buti ran at EIU and graduated in 1999).
In the varsity race the Giants got a solid race from senior Brett Davidson. Davidson was with the lead back through the mile at which time he tried to distance himself. By the two mile, two other runners caught back up to him and were able to move ahead of him. In the end, he had a strong finish to take 3rd place (15:30), just one second behind 2nd place and 10 seconds behind 1st. After Davidson, HP looked to put together a strong pack. For the most part, the pack ran well together, but were just behind the packs from Downers Grove North and Jacobs. In the end it was juniors Ben Bloom (16:37, 13th) and Charlie Skurie (16:38, 14th) that led the way. Bloom was a nice surprise for the team as this is his first year running high school cross country. Skurie put in a great summer of training and it showed in this meet. Next in for the team was the duo of junior Jonathan Rosenfeld (16:47, 19th) and sophomore Nate Amster (16:48, 20th). Rosenfeld had an off race, so look for him to bounce back in the next meet. Amster got out well the first mile, but was unable to hang on the final two miles. Senior Alejandro Gutierrez (17:10, 23rd) and sophomore Alec Glazier (17:19, 24th) rounded out the top 7 for the team. These two put in a lot of hard work this summer and are looking to improve on their start to the season. The team took 3rd place with 68pts. They finished behind Downers Grove North and Jacobs, each scoring 55pts (DGN won on the 6th man tie breaker).
The frosh-soph were led by a gusty 16:45 performance from freshmen Jose Reyes (his time was 4th best for the entire team on the 3 mile course). He took 4th place in the race; beat by 3 sophomores. Many of the freshmen had strong performances in their first high school cross country race. Two of those performances were by Aidan Rosenbloom (19:31) and Andrew Biondi (23:21). They were able to outperform any of their workouts to date with tough focused racing. They were consistent with their splits and Rosenbloom even closed in his fastest mile time.
The pack, along with a front runner like Davidson, could really allow for the team to have great success this season. Work still needs to be done and improvements need to be made in how the team races, but they are up for the challenge and have re-committed to do what it takes!