CPS High Hurdles Preview

Dae Shawn Hurley is shown here after the first hurdle in last year's 110 meter high hurdles finals in the CPS meet.
Non-seniors in last year's 110m high hurdles prelims at the city meet
Boys track is one of the more popular (and good) CPS sports. But for some reason hurdles never get's the participation that it could. Maybe because all the sprinters want to be 100 meter runners, all the basketball players go for the jumps, the big football players want to do the shot put or discus, and all the cross country guys want to do distance. Thus, hurdling is an event that is often overlooked.
This dynamic creates a situation like last year where only 15 hurdlers posted times in the CPS prelims for the 110m hurdles. And 6 out of those 15 hurdlers came from either Mather, North Lawndale, or Morgan Park. Furthermore, 9 of those 15 hurdlers were seniors last year including 7 out of the 8 who made the finals. The one all city returnee is Dae Shawn Hurley(sr), who ran for Morgan Park last year, but transferred to Julian this year. It is not even certain he will run track this year because Julian may not even have a track team and Hurley may decide to concentrate on football. Hurley accepted an offer to play football for Ball State.
This means the high hurdles is completely open this year.
One person that will surely be in the mix is Imani Payton(so) of North Lawndale. The uber talented sophomore has the slim and muscular build of a hurdler, but could also do every sprint event. He fell only place short of making the finals last year at the varsity level.
Other 110m hurdlers participants last year who return are Javon Brown(sr) of Orr, Dariel Crowder(sr) of Morgan Park, Quincie Johnson(so)of Dusable, and Antonio Smith(so)of Agriculture Science. Brown and Crowder are proven veterans and will be a force this year if they decide to run hurdles again. Smith is a project who won the group C 55 meter title at CPS Indoors last year.
Expect defending city champion Lane Tech to have two strong participants. One of them will likely be much improved senior Michael Sliwiak(sr). Through lots of hard work and good coaching he has steadily improved his form. He was expected to make the finals last year but DQ'd in prelims.
Also expect city runner up Calumet, Whitney Young, and Mather to develop a couple hurdlers to try to get oh so valuable city meet points.
There is also an influx of hurdling talent that ran at the frosh-soph level in the city meet. Look out for Craig Henry(jr) of Brooks, Lucien Fitzpatrick(so) of Northside, Breon Bland(jr) of Steinmetz, tall Justin Feulner(jr) of Lake View, Ezekiel Givens(so) of Mather and Lester Harris(jr) of Payton.
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