Varsity Finishes 2nd At Libertyville Invite

The Libertyville Invite was a great opportunity to face Prospect, which is one of the top teams HP will face at the Sectional Meet later this season. The course is very challenging so the main focus was racing for position.

Here are some of the highlights:

In the Varsity race HP knew that Prospect would start out more conservative and try to come from behind for the win. The Giants top 4 (seniors Fitz Laurie, Nate Amster, and Alec Glazier and junior Jose Reyes) got out well and ran as a pack! They were ready for when Prospect tried to move past them. It was a great battle in the final mile as the Highland Park pack battled the Prospect pack. Reyes finished in 4th place just behind Prospect’s number one runner. Prospect's number two runner was a few seconds ahead of Amster (7th place) and Laurie (8th place). Glazier was sandwiched between Prospect’s 3rd and 4th runner to take 10th place. After that Prospect was too strong as they had 7 in front of HP’s 5th runner, junior Jordy Mazza (38th). The team will need more help behind the top 4 if they are going to be able to compete with teams the caliber of Prospect. The coaches are confident those needed improvements will come as the team is working hard to reach their goals.

In the Frosh-Soph race, the team was led by a strong performance from freshmen Jason Polydoris (19:01). He was followed by a gutsy race from freshmen Erik Anderson (19:35) after recently being sick. The next pack included three freshmen that ran very well on such a challenging course. Tyler Carlson (19:52), Max Friedman (20:01), and a nice breakthrough race by Jason Werneth (20:07). The next 4 HP finishers were just 2 seconds apart! The pack included freshmen Nathan Kornberg (20:27), sophomore Jake Margolick (20:28), and freshmen Levi Pasikov (20:29) and Evan Diethrich (20:29). Freshmen Ari Kaden had a very strong kick to pass several runners in the final 400 to finish in 21:08. The freshmen continue to show tremendous improvement and have shown that they have the heart to really compete out on the cross country course.

The entire team continues to make great strides at each meet. If they can remain focused on being relentless in doing all that it takes to be successful, then success will continue to follow.