8:00.48 for Lane in the 4x800!
4:17.34 for Dale in the 1600!
Jon Vara(jr) of Lane in the lead at the Illinois Prep Top Times Meet. Lane finished 2nd with a time of 8:00.48. That time is even faster that Lane's best indoor time last year. Lane reloads quickly despite graduating 3 runners from last year's state championship 4x8 team.
4x800m relay-
Minooka 7:58.10- 2:00.6, 1:57.8, 2:00.6, 1:58.9
Chicago Lane Tech 8:00.48- 1:58.6, 1:59.6, 2:03.4, 1:59.1
Skokie Niles North 8:00.49- 1:59.6, 1:58.8, 2:02.3, 1:59.6
Summary: This looked like last year’s final with Minooka winning, Niles North second, and Lane Tech third. Well, Minooka repeated with a school record in tow. The championship started out aggressively with the 12-man herd. It took about two and half laps for the players to emerge. Lane Tech’s Pavlo Hutsalyuk (So.) moved to the front with force by the 600m.
Hutsalyuk continued to surge and pull away from the pack that included Minooka, Niles North, and few others in the mix. Hutsalyuk created a clean lane for the 5-4 Jon Vara (Jr.) to navigate the roadway free of traffic. Vara worked the Mondo surface to his liking as if he was running a solo time trial. He reached his 600 in about 1:28 low before feeling some pressure from Minooka’s Chris Wilson. Wilson charged extremely hard and drew about even to the third exchange. Niles North had also made their intentions known as well by a strong leg by Emmett Barr.
Lane leads at the 3rd exchange as Jon Vara hands the baton to David Schmieg.
Lane still had the lead but only by a thread as David Schmieg (Jr.) was trying for dear life to hold on. By the second lap Minooka took over with Cam Knudsen who steamrolled to the front. Schmieg fell back even further out of the top three spots. Niles North’s Aquil Aboobaker (Sr.) emerged in second to give his team a fighting chance. The pre-meet list leader Crystal Lake South was nowhere to be seen. In fact, as the race was about to enter the anchor leg stage, it was a three team race.
The final legs were off and running. Minooka now had a dominant lead with Alex Pierce in control. No other team beside Lane Tech and Niles North were in position to threaten Minooka. The gap on the rest of the pack was about three or four seconds. Lane’s Marcelo Burbano and Niles North’s Randy Mortell gave chase after Pierce. Initially,
they appeared to gain on Pierce but it was too late as Pierce turned on
the jets one last time with less than a lap remaining. Burbano had a step on Mortell and was desperately trying to hold off Mortell. As
Pierce brought home the baton to an IL#1 time and school record,
Burbano sprinted hard with hard charging Mortell on his shadow. Mortell
dove at the line but just came up short by a shoestring. So once again the trio provided déjà vu all over again- but it was just one year later.
Jamison Dale-
Jamison Dale (Sr., Chicago Jones) and his coaches had a plan unbeknownst to the rest of the field. What would he do in the 1600? Dale usually likes to hold back and burn rubber in the middle of the race like a Kenyan surge. But the scouting report is out on that tactic now. Dale immediately moved ahead and out of sight of the pack. There
wasn’t much noise in the race probably because most of the crowd that
Dale was insane for going out so far ahead of everyone. The Loyola
University bound Dale hit the first 400 in 60.8- more than four seconds
ahead of the field. More of the same at 800 he touched base in 2:03.6. Still no one came to challenge him. Dale’s
coach Andrew Adelmann shouted instructions on the backstretch for him
to get it going. Dale started to fatigue a bit at 1200 despite still
having a strong lead and time of 3:08.5. His legs began to wobble but he continued on. The chase pack led by Paxton Menard (Sr., Belvidere North) and Alex Gold (Deerfield) came on strong but it was too late. Dale won in 4:17.34. Gold took second (4:20.80) and Menard (4:21.61) was third. Adelmann would later say “we gotta work on things to come later in the year.” That
probably means running up with the likes of Jack Keelan (Sr., Chicago
St. Ignatius) and Garrett Lee once the calendar changes to May.
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