Warriors Earn State Berths at 3A Sectional Meet

Warriors Earn State Berths at the 3A Loyola SECTIONAL

On Thursday May 22nd the Deerfield Warriors Boys Track & Field Team traveled to the excellent MONDO facility at Loyola Academy High School to compete in one very tough IHSA Sectional.  This meet is what the entire Track & Field program is based on.  STATE LEVEL FOCUS. 

It requires great mental toughness, great character, great training, and intense competing in order to set a personal record, earn a sectional medal, and most importantly qualify for the STATE Championships.  The Warriors came off a tough battle at the CSL North Championships and were looking to have another great night on the Track and in the Field.  The Warriors finished 8th with 31pts overall which again shows that year in and year out the DHS Track & Field program is a consistent quality team and program in the Chicagoland area and continue to qualify athletes to state every year and consistently finish in the Top 10 Teams of Sectionals.  Champions of the CSL South Evanston won the Sectional for the 3rd year in a row with a dominating 106.5pts, Niles Wests 74pts was runner up as they continued to show how deep their team is, and with New Trier scoring 62pts to round out the TOP 3 Teams.  The Warriors did have a nice highlight with 1st out of all CSL North teams by beating Highland Park’s 25.5pts, , GBN 20pts, ME 14pts, NN 12pts, , and MW 9pts respectively.   On to the highlights!

The day started off just like last year with Senior Dominic Dibenedetto setting the State stage on his 1st throw by qualifying with a 53’10.5” well above the state qualifying standard as this earned him 3rd place.   Dom has worked very hard in the rings and has big goals downstate and after having a key experience as Junior downstate last year he is primed to do his best on the biggest stage.  Congrats Dom!

Our next qualifier was Junior Chris Douglas as he simply continues to improve every week on his start and hurdle technique as he raced to the SECTIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in the 110HH to earn a State berth! 

This was not a surprise as Chris showed up in 8th grade to our Summer Track program and simply has been working at this for 4 years every summer and it paid off big! What was is so exciting is that Chris after this race stated “I can do better” and still shows that hunger he showed in 8th grade to be the best as he immediately focused on the 300IH where he also raced to a State berth by earning 2nd place and just missed the school record of 39.04 set by 2012 Grad Adam Rabushka with a time of 39.39 even with chopping several hurdles!  What a day out of Chris as he showed why he is one of the key foundations for our team and program and what goal oriented work can do. Congrats Chris!

Those were the only qualifiers for the day but we did have other ALL Sectional medalists.  Junior Charlie Kogan earned a 3rd place medal in the Triple Jump with is 2nd best mark of his career with a 43’8”.  He had some big jumps that he just toe fouled on but that’s the beauty of Track & Field as you have to have all the fundamentals right to earn the bog rewards.  Junior Charles Nash earned a 6th place medal in the 800 with a time of 158.61 which was his 2nd best time of his career as well.  Charles came back strong the last two weeks after fighting some serious illness and was in perfect position and ran a masterful race with 200m to go; however, Sectionals is often about who comes in with the best momentum in training and health and for Charles to get back on track the last two weeks is admirable but one could see the training that was effected by this and was a variable that had some effect with his finishing kick.

Other great performances were PR’s et by the following:  The 4x100R of Zach Shaltiel, Sam Rock, Jon Sciarretta, and Brian Ranallo taking 1st in their heat, the 4x200R of Dylan Ruskin, Jon Heiser, Dan Schindler, and Will Boshes taking 3rd in their heat, Alex Wolfe with a 9 sec PR of 4:35 in the 1600, Jacob Avenaim and Brian Ranallo in the 100m dash, Jon Heiser and Will Boshes in the 200m dash, Graham Tonner on the Discus making Finals and taking 9th place, Joe Newhall in the 110HH with a big PR f 16.14, and the 300IH with a 41.88 , and Jamie Ackerson had another big drop in the 400 with a 53.43; furthermore, Jacob Daitch and Jeremy Latronica also set PR’s in their 800’s for the DFDC as Anthony Wolski almost broke 40ft in the TJ setting a new PR as well!  We are a State focused program and the boys showed up BIG! Great job 41!

*Full Meet Results and ALL State Meet Information can be found at www.ihsa.org

NOW it’s on to STATE STATE STATE!