Varsity Finishes 3rd At CSL North Championship

The Highland Park varsity track & field team put together its best all around team performance at the rainy CSL North Outdoor Championship Meet.   The Giants finished in 3rd place behind Niles North and the winning team from Glenbrook North.   

The team looked to the throwers to get the scoring going early.  In the Discus junior Joey Sereda bounced back from a poor showing at the Lake County Invite.   Sereda came up big for the team with a 136’6” throw to take 1st place.  Senior Tucker Thompson also stepped up with a big throw to take 3rd place (133’10”) and then came back to win the Shot Put with a 48’7” mark.   

All of the varsity competitors for HP in the jumps return next year and got some good experience competing at the conference meet.   Junior DJ Penick had a big performance in the Triple Jump as he stepped up to get 40’6.25” and take 4th place.  He also placed 6th in the Long Jump with a 19’4.25”.   Junior Bobby McCraren finished tied for 5th in the Pole Vault (10’7”).  The jumps will be an area that the team will need to get more points from to help win a championship next year.   Those athletes know they have to put in the work to make the big improvements needed.

The scoring in the track events got started with a strong 3rd place performance by the 4X800 Meter Relay.  Each guy on the team battled and raced with confidence as they each ran their best time (junior Josh Drummond 2:08.8, seniors Joe Pinsky 2:07.9 and Alejandro Gutierrez 2:10.1, and junior Matthew Casey 2:06.4).

The 3200 Meter Run saw senior Brett Davidson lead nearly the entire race as he pushed the pace to try and break his rival Martin Barr from Niles North.  In the end Barr got by Davidson, but he still ran an outstanding gutsy race to finish in 9:10.92 for 2nd place.  Davidson’s time was less than 1 second off the school record.   Freshmen Jose Reyes also ran extremely tough as he finished in 5th place with a time of 9:57.12.   This improved his own freshmen school record and made him the first freshmen in the history of Highland Park High School to run sub 10 for the 3200!

Junior Zev Motew raced to a 3rd place finish in the 110 Meter High Hurdles (15.37).

Despite being injured most of the outdoor season, sophomore Fitz Laurie put together a strong race in the 800 Meter Run to finish in 5th place (2:03.15).

The 4X200 Meter Relay has been a strength of the sprint crew all season and they ran well once again.   The team finished in 3rd place with a time of 1:36.56 (Juniors Ben Davis, Keith Greenwood, DJ Penick, and senior Mark Gilling).

Motew also finished 5th in the 300 Intermediate Hurdles.  Senior Ryan Kriozere was having a strong race as he continued his comeback from injury, but came up on the final hurdle too fast and lost control and put his hands on the hurdle causing a DQ.   Look for him to bounce back with a great race at Sectionals!

The 1600 Meter Run went out slow during the first 400 and Davidson along with junior Jonathan Rosenfeld had to take control and begin to push the pace.  Once again Barr came away with a come from behind victory as Rosenfeld and Davidson took 2nd and 3rd (4:30.25 and 4:30.57).

Davis was able to run well out of the slow heat as he got a 6th place overall finish in the 200 Meter Dash.   The sprinters know that they too must put in a tremendous amount of work by this meet next year.   If the team is going to win a championship, they will need more points in the sprints.

The final event on the track saw the Giants take 2nd in the 4X40 Meter Relay (junior Steven Weathers with a great lead-off leg, seniors Greg Schorsch and Ryan Kriozere, and Motew).

HP ended up with 6 All-Conference Athletes:  Tucker Thompson, Brett Davidson, Joey Sereda, Zev Motew, Jonathan Rosenfeld, and DJ Penick.   

This was a nice step forward for the team and a great way to end the regular season and head into the Sectional meet with confindence.