HP Has Strong Showing at Prospect Relays

Highland Park began the outdoor portion of the season with the Prospect Relays. The meet included an open 1600 meter run and open 200 meter dash. Every other event was either a relay or the times/distances/heights were added together to decide the places for each team in that event. A meet like this, tests the depth of a team.  

Field Event Highlights:

In the shot put, HP was led by senior Caden Hellrung with a 38’6.75” toss. Junior Dmitry Derbedyenyev competed in his first meet of the season and threw 36’9.5”. Freshman Max Sukenik continued to have a successful season as he threw a personal best 34’0”. Sophomore Braxten Peterson got a mark of 32’3”.

Derbedyenyev led the way for the Giants in the discus. He threw 120’5” and is off to a great start to the outdoor season. Hellrung had a big personal best throw of 115’8”. Senior Geoff Buck got to throw the discus and ended up with an 82’8” mark. Peterson was able to get a mark of 75’3”. 

HP pole vaulters had a big day at the meet. The team was led by sophomore Gavin Flory with a 1 foot personal best at 10’2”. Seniors Diego Alvarez and Enrique Lipezker both cleared 8’8”. This was a 1 foot personal best for Alvarez. Fellow senior Finn Davis went from a personal best of 6’8” to clearing 7’7.75” for a new personal best.

In the high jump, junior Russell Czerwinski cleared 5’7” while junior Nolan Schott got over 5’5”. 

Senior DJ Robinson was able to jump over 19 feet with a best mark of 19’1.25” to lead the way for the Giants. Junior Tyler Rosenthal had a personal best 17’8” jump. Sophomore Eli Perkins also had a personal best jump with a 17’6.75” mark. Junior Oliver Baterdene also jumped over 17 feet with a best jump of 17’4.75”.

Robinson had a season best mark in the triple jump with a 39’0.25” mark. Rosenthal got another personal best with his jump of 36’8.25”. Sophomore Quentin Kelley jumped 36’2” and Perkins was at 35’11.25”. 

Track Event Highlights:

The open 1600 meter run was the first event of the day on the track. HP had 15 competitors with several racing to big breakthroughs and a few more personal bests. The fastest times for the team were run by a trio of freshmen. Josh Brown, Logan Liu, and Henry Gamson all planned to work together to run sub 5. They did so through most of the race. Brown came across in 5:01.28 for a 16 second personal best. Liu closed hard to finish right behind Brown in a personal best 5:01.97. Gamson also ran a personal best 5:06.68. Despite falling and having the race restart, freshman Daniel Doyle ran 5:26.97. Freshman Gal Raviv improved his time from 6:21 to 5:39.88. Freshmen Truman Evans and David Miller ran extremely well in their heat. They moved into the top two positions and pulled away from the competition. Evans had a great last lap to finish in 5:48.69 and win the heat. This was an over 1 minute personal best. Miller was second in the heat and ran nearly a one minute personal best as well finishing in 5:56.32. Freshmen Joey Naftzger and Yousuf Ansari both ran under 8 minutes for the first time this season in a 1600. Naftzger ran 6:50.90 and Ansari crossed the line in 6:59.53. 

The next event on the track was the open 200 meter dash. Each team was only allowed 10 competitors that were not participating in the field events. The Giants were led by junior newcomer Hugh Crawford in :25.64. Freshman Daniel Huicochea continues to show impressive speed with a :25.95. His indoor best was :27.6. Sophomore Alejandro Jauregui ran :27.08 for a personal best. Freshman Hayden Tortora ran over a second faster than his indoor best in :27.18. Junior Jose Martinez ran :27.46 competing in his first meet of the season. Sophomore Julian Chroman continues to show tremendous improvement. Last year he never broke 30 seconds for 200 meters and at this meet he ran :27.79 which is over a second faster than his best time this indoor season. Senior Alex Labez had a huge personal best as he ran :28.47 compared to his previous best of :31.1. Three more freshmen ran big personal bests. Spencer Pedraza went from :31.0 to :29.12. Ethan Glovsky improved from :30.9 to :29.31 while Lucas Hoobler dropped from :31.1 to :29.65.

The 300 meter intermediate hurdles race had some fast times for HP and a few falls. Junior Robert Oboza got out fast and pushed through the race. When he got to the second from last hurdle, he hit it and went down. After quickly getting up, he crossed the line in an impressive :45.65. Junior Oliver Baterdene ran :46.69 to finish close to his personal best. Sophomore Lachlan Knapp also raced well but caught the same second to last hurdle as Oboza and still was able to run :49.19. Sophomore Mateo Diaz finished in a solid :51.90.

The 6400 meter relay (4X1600) was next on the track. The first heat saw HP senior Noah Jackson take control of the race early and pull away to a commanding lead to win the heat. He ran a personal best 4:40.12. The second heat had juniors Nate Wehner and Barak Goldstein along with sophomore Brian Hatoum. The trio worked together to get up towards the front of the race. Hatoum and Wehner raced behind the leader to take 2nd and 3rd place. Hatoum ran a huge personal best 4:25.25 and Wehner was right behind him in 4:26.30. Goldstein fell off the pace and finished in 4:46.07.

The 4X100s on both varsity and frosh-soph were just a starting point for the season. As speed progresses and the teams work on their handoffs more, those times will drop. The frosh-soph (DePaolo, Nunez, Rojas, and Knapp) ran :50.32 and the varsity (Eam, Robinson, Baterdene, and Liss) finished in :45.89.   

The 3200 meter medley relay was led off by Quentin Kelley in a 400 at a personal best :55.1. He handed off to junior Connor Edelstein for another 400. He ran his leg in a personal best :58.4. Sophomore Usiel Rodrigez ran a great 800 leg with a personal best 2:07.5. The relay was anchored by senior Angel Zeferino running a 1600 in 4:56.0. The team ran well and took 3rd place in 8:57.72. 

In the 1600 medley relay, senior Paul Eam led off with a 200 in :23.5. Junior Jose Martinez was next with another 200 which he split a :26.4. Junior Zach Coren ran a big personal best for the 400 leg of the race in :53.6. Oboza anchored the relay with the 800 in 2:07.1. The team ran 3:51.04 to take 3rd place.

The Distance Medley Relay (DMR) was next. HP had a strong line-up for this relay, but also knew the 3 of the 4 runners had already run in the 6400 meter relay. Hatoum led off with a very impressive 1200 in 3:17.2 to give the Giants the lead. He handed off to junior Doug Anderson for the 400 leg. Anderson took off and pulled away from the other teams with an amazing split of :48.7! Jackson came back with another impressive run as he kept the lead for the team with a 2:07.4 800. Finally, Wehner ran the 1600 in 4:35.7 for an HP victory. The team ran 10:49.14 which was less than 9 seconds off the meet record.

The 800 medley relay of Crawford, Liss, Rosenthal, and Edelstein ran 1:47.54. They finished in 7th place.

For the 110 high hurdle races Czerwinski led the way for the Giants running 18.87 in his first outdoor 110HH race of his career. Baterdene was next with a personal best 19.33. Knapp ran 20.37 while Diaz crossed the line in 22.02. 

The 4X200s, like the 4X100s, were solid, but will need improvement as the season progresses. The frosh-soph (Knapp, Nunez, Rojas, and Huicochea) ran 1:45.55 for 7th place. The varsity (Alvarez, Robinson, Perkins, and Picazo) ran 1:39.31 for 6th place. 

The frosh-soph 4X800 meter relay took 7th in 9:49.83. Gamson led off with a personal best 2:22.0. Evans then ran a personal best 2:32.2. Raviv cramped up, but still ran 2:34.2. Liu anchored in a personal best 2:21.6. The varsity 4X800 was led off with a 2:10 .0 from Oboza. Coren raced to a 2:07.1. Junior Yonatan Garfinkel spilt a 2:16.6 while Zeferino anchored in 2:20.5. The team ran 8:54.42 to finish in 6th place.

The 4X400s were exciting races as always. The frosh-soph were led off by Kelley in another fast split of :55.6. Rodriguez ran a personal best split of :55.4. Brown also ran a personal best of :59.6. Hatoum got the baton in a battle with 2 teams battling for 2nd place as Prospect was way out in front. Hatoum ran an incredible :53.7 to anchor the team to a second place finish in 3:44.46. The varsity race was also extremely competitive. Jackson continued his great meet with a personal best for the lead-off of :54.0. Goldstein bounced back from his disappointment in the 1600 to run :52.9. A tired Wehner battled tough to run a :54.3. Anderson anchored the relay for a come from behind thrilling victory. He had another outstanding split of :48,4! The team won with a season best time of 3:29.64 and were just over 2 seconds off the meet record.

This was a strong start to the outdoor season for the Giants! The team finished 4th overall. There were many personal best performances and inspiring efforts by members of the team. Much work still needs to be done, but the team is off to a good start to the outdoor season. Big things still to come.