Frosh-Soph Win Outdoor CSL North Championship!

The Highland Park High School frosh-soph team had a well balanced team effort to win the 2016 CSL North Outdoor Championship!  It was very exciting for the coaches to see so many athletes step up and have their best performances of the season despite rainy conditions!   

As always, it is crucial to score big points in the field events if you are trying to win a championship.   The Giants were able to do that starting in the throws as sophomore Zach Auerbach won both the Shot Put (40’7”)  and Discus (130’9”).  The rest of the field events also scored significant points.  The Long Jump had sophomore Luke Crawford and freshmen Amir Fakhari hitting their best marks of the season.  Crawford took 3rd (17’11.5”) and Fakhari was 6th (17’9”).   The team also got 3rd place finishes in the High Jump (Jack Casey 5’2”) and Pole Vault (Ben Kirsch 10’0”).  Finally, Fakhari finished 5th in the Triple Jump (36’1”).

The track events got started with a strong 2nd place finish in the 4X800 Meter Relay (freshmen Chris Cizek, Jack Schulman, and Jack Casey teamed with sophomore Sebastian Arias to run 9:25.22). Each member of this relay ran extremely tough.

The 4X100 Meter Relay took 5th place in 49.19.

In the 3200 Meter Run sophomores Alec Glazier and Nate Amster went to the front early and never were challenged by the other runners as they took 1st and 2nd (10:03.37 and 10:14.26).   

Joseph Beaudet was the top freshmen in the 110 Meter High Hurdles as he took 3rd in 19.12.

Sophomore Michael Menaker ran 12.22 to finish 4th in the 100 Meter Dash.

The 800 Meter Run was won by freshmen Richard Heller as he paced his race perfectly and had a strong finish to run a big personal best of 2:10.96!

The 4X200 Meter Relay came across the finish line first, but were informed that on their 2nd exchange they were just barely out of the zone and ended up with a DQ.   

Freshmen Jakob French and sophomore Ben Zavell took 4th and 5th in the 400 Meter Dash (57.16 and 57.58).

Beaudet also placed 6th in the 300 Intermediate Hurdles in 50.08.

Glazier came back with a gutsy finish in the 1600 Meter Run to become a double champion and edge out a Niles North runner in 4:58.58.  Amster finished 5th in 4:57.38.

In his fourth event of the night, Fakhari finished the 200 Meter Dash with a personal best 25.47 to take 4th place.

The final event on the track saw the Giants run a gritty 4X400 Meter Relay to take 2nd place in 3:51.69.   Zavell led off and got the team into good position with a 57.8.  Next up Casey ran his best split of 59.7 as he handed off to French.  His split was 58.4 and the team was in a battle with GBN for 2nd place.   The GBN runner passed Heller on the anchor leg with about 200 meters to go.  Heller then fought back and showed tremendous tenacity as he battled past the GBN runner to help give his team 2nd place in the event.

Highland Park scored 120 points to win the meet!   GBN was 2nd with 107.5 and Niles North took 3rd with 99.   What a thrilling meet for these young track & field athletes!   The hope is that each of them is motivated to come back and win more championships over the next few years.  They have the talent to do that if they are ALL willing to put in the work and make a commitment to be the best track & field athlete they can be.  

“Nobody said it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.” -Unknown

“Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” -George Halas