Freshmen Tie For Team Championship at New Trier Frosh-Soph Invite

The Highland Park Freshmen had a great team performance at the New Trier Frosh-Soph Invite. The Giants ended up tied with New Trier as Freshmen Champions. The team championship included 5 individual event winners and one relay champion.

Jason Polydoris had an impressive meet. It started with a tough battle with his rival Josh Puyear from Deerfield in the 3200 Meter Run. Jason led a majority of the race, but Puyear took the lead late in the race. As they came done the final stretch, Polydoris had to fight with all he had to barely get by Puyear at the line. The winning time of 9:58.13 is a new Freshmen Meet Record and is just over one second off the HPHS Freshmen Record. Polydoris came back in the 1600 Meter Run and led his teammate Jason Werneth to a 1-2 in the event. Polydoris ran 4:53.51 while Werneth finished in a new personal best with a 4:54.16.

Zion Griffin put his speed on display as he won the both the 100 and 200 Meter Dashes. In the 100, he ran an 11.82 to be the only finisher in the race under 12 seconds. For the 200, Griffin finished nearly .5 seconds ahead of the second place finisher as he came across the line in 24.47. He also took 3rd in the Long Jump with a 17’9” jump and 5th in the High Jump at 4’10”.

The other individual event winner for the Giants was Chris Lee in the Shot Put. He had a throw of 39’4.5” for a personal best mark in the event.

The track events were capped off with a thrilling 4X400 Meter Relay. HP’s team built an early lead on its first two legs of the relay (Ari Kaden 59.9 and Tyler Carlson 57.8). An exhausted Polydoris (1:01.7) battled tough on the 3rd leg as two teams were now right with HP. Werneth (59.4) showed his incredible toughness and determination as he anchored the team to victory down the final stretch passing Loyola and GBN. They finished in 3:58.9.

Other highlights for the Freshmen were seen throughout the meet:

The 4X800 Meter Relay team of Kaden (2:20.8), Levi Pasikov (2:21.9), Albert Klayman (2:29.0), and Mason Goldstein (2:22.6) took 2nd place in 9:34.33. They were less than 10 seconds behind the winning team from GBN.

Carlson ran a 2:11.03 personal best in the 800 Meter Run to take second place.

Evan Diethrich finished in 4th place in the 300 Meter Intermediate Hurdles in a time of 47.91.

In the Pole Vault, Simon Auerbach cleared a new personal best of 10’0” to finish in 2nd place.

Jaden Holzman got a 16’7” mark in the Long Jump to take 5th place.

Nathaniel Cohen  took 4th place in the Discus with a toss of 80’1”.

-The sophomores don’t have as deep of a talented roster as the freshmen, but still had some highlights on the Sophomore Level.

Their only event champion was Charlie Kleiman as he finished in 1st place for the Discus. He had a throw of 96’2”. He also took 3rd in the Shot Put with a toss of 37’2.5”.

Freshmen Scott Curtis was running up on the Sophomore Level to help fill in some relays and also ran the 200 Meter Dash. He ran 25.62 to take 5th place.

Devlin Arrington took 5th in the Long Jump with a 17’4” mark.

Eduardo Monk had a strong race in the 300 Intermediate Hurdles to take 3rd place in 47.29. He also took 6th in the 110 Meter High Hurdles (19.7) with teammate Max Kaplan taking 7th in 21.13.

Corey Fairchild had a huge PR in the 1600 Meter Run as he crossed the line in 5:10.67.

Kolton Jacobs and Emre Gulpinar were 6th and 7th in the 100 Meter Dash. Their times were 12.35 and 12.41.

The future if HPHS Boys Track & Field looks strong.  It will take the current team members sticking with the program and continuing to show that they have the Championship Character it takes to be the best student athletes they can be.