HP Sweeps Quad Meet On Both Levels

The 2nd CSL Quad Meet took place at Maine East HS. The course was muddy due to recent rains, but the Giants were ready to compete!

The frosh-soph raced first with the roster being mostly freshmen. Alex Bradshaw, Noah Apley, and Noah Jackson got out well and were up near the front. Simon Snead and Santiago Pozo also got out extremely well. Bradshaw worked to the front and made a gutsy attempt for the win, but could not hold off the top runner from Maine East and finished in 2nd place. He ran 11:28.9 for the course that was said to be 2.05 miles. Jackson and Apley finished close together in 4th and 5th (11:52.4 and 11:54.1). Pozo and Snead had their best races of the season in 10th and 14th (12:45.7 and 13:11.7). The rest of the team also had great races. Enrique Lipezker and Andrew Arzac finished in an impressive 13:31.37 and 14:33.3. Sophomore Evan Boby ran 15:07.1 after recently being sick. Ramey Heimgartner went through the first mile in a personal best and had a strong second half to finish in 15:56.3 while sophomore Ethan Nicolaz-Davidson had another great quad meet race finishing in 16:09.5. 

HP won against the other 3 schools (Vernon Hills, Niles North, and Maine East). This group of young runners keeps improving and showing that they have the potential to be a very successful team over the next several years! 

In the varsity race, the team got out to a solid start in the rain that started falling. From there they worked their way into position to win the meet. Junior Jason Polydoris pulled away from the field and won in the muddy conditions with a 16:25.6. This is his 3rd individual win in a row. Senior Corey Fairchild had a great race as he chased a runner from Maine East for nearly half the race before passing him and finishing strong in 2nd place (16:45.5). Sophomore Alex Brown and junior Erik Anderson also had impressive races in the mud. Brown was 4th in 17:27.1 while Anderson battled a Niles North runner to the line to take 6th in 17:37.5. Junior Max Friedman ran an awesome race to finish in 7th place only 8 seconds behind Anderson in 7th place (17:45.2). Senior Max Marmitt did not get out as well as he wanted to in the first mile, but worked his way up well throughout the remainder of the race. He finished in 10th place running 17:51.9. Freshman Angel Zeferino and junior Jason Werneth also battled tough as they took 12th and 13th (18:02.3 and 18:03.5). Senior Dylan Pearson had a huge breakthrough race as he took a big risk early and hung on well in the second half of the race to finish in 19th running a huge personal best 18:41.7. Sophomores RJ Guhl and Alejandro Seiden were next in running 18:55.5 and 19:03.4. Senior Ryan Rosenfeld followed them in 19:48.8 with sophomore Ted Zinox running a personal best 20:00.5 not far behind. The next trio in was junior Ari Kaden (20:25.2), junior Albert Klayman (20:44.2), and senior Max Kaplan (running 20:44.7 in his first race of the season). Junior Max Laky crossed the line in 22:57.6. 

This was the best team race this season for the Giants as they had dominant wins against all three other schools. The team continues to improve but knows that they are not where they need to be yet. This squad continues to raise the bar in practice and meets so that they can reach their goals. Next up is the Wheeling Invite which will be a big test for the team before the conference meet.