Varsity Falls Short In Attempt To Win The Deerfield Dual

The Highland Park varsity track & field team lost a tough battle with rival Deerfield at the 2016 Deerfield Dual.  The team competed well, but it was not enough to beat a talented Deerfield team.   

HP was outscored in the field events 34-11.  That is a tough deficit to overcome.   Despite outscoring Deerfield in the track events, the Giants lost 53.5-69.5.   

The Shot Put was one of the bright spots in the field events.  HP went 1-2 as senior Tucker Thompson won with a 43’4” toss as sophomore Zach Auerbach was 2nd with a career best 41’7” mark.   

Third place finishes were earned by juniors Zev Motew (19’1”, Long Jump...just 4 inches behind 1st place), DJ Penick (38’4”, Triple Jump...pulled into 3rd place on his final jump), and Bobby McCraren (9’6”, Pole Vault...first year on track and was just 6 inches out of 1st).   Look for these three athletes to do “GIANT” things for us next year at the Dual Meet!

The track events began with the 4X800 Meter Relay (juniors Jonathan Rosenfeld, Matthew Casey, Josh Drummond, and senior Brett Davidson) taking the big win.   

The 50 Meter High Hurdles had senior Ryan Kriozere winning in 7.2 while Motew was 3rd at 7.3.  Kriozere had the misfortune of a bad fall right at the finish line and hurt his knee and was not able to compete the rest of the meet.

The 800 Meter Run had sophomore Fitz Laurie pull away from the rest of the field to win in 2:09.4.  

The 4X160 Meter Relay did not win, but ran a great race to finish just .3 seconds behind a very good Deerfield Relay.  The relay was switched up when Kriozere got injured and sophomore Michael Menaker took the lead off spot.   Juniors Ben Davis and Penick ran strong legs for the relay and senior Mark Gilling closed on the Deerfield runner with a gutsy anchor leg, but ran out of time to catch him.

Junior distance runner Jonathan Rosenfeld came from behind in the 400 Meter Dash with a gutsy race to win in 58.1.

The team was hoping for a sweep in the 1600 Meter Run but had to settle for a 1-2 finish.  Davidson won in 4:42.3 while freshmen Jose Reyes took 2nd in 4:47.7

The 200 Meter Dash had Gilling taking 2nd (25.2) and Davis in a tie for 3rd (25.3).   

The final event on the track was the 4X400 Meter Relay.   HP ran away with the victory in 3:54.6 (Rosenfeld, Laurie, Drummond, and Motew).   The excitement and energy showed by the Highland Park team is something that needs to be portrayed throughout a meet.   That type of enthusiasm brings a team together and motivates the athletes to compete for eachother.    

The coaching staff is proud of the team, but knows it is capable of bigger and better things the remainder of the season.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  -Sir Winston Churchill