News

Saturday, September 24
Deer Grove East Forest Preserve (Cook County Forest Preserve, 1599 Pepper Tree Dr, Palatine, IL 60074)

Race Results: Varsity | Junior Varsity
Photographs: Varsity | Junior Varsity
Meet Videos: Varsity | Junior Varsity
Team Split Sheet: Here

The trip to Palatine, a trip we've been making since 2010, marks the competitive midpoint of the season. Affording us the opportunity to practice an overnight trip in advance of the State meet and race against top-notch competition we don't get to see any other time before post-State meet regional competition, it is a good barometer of progress made and where we might go for the final half of the season.

In the varsity race, despite not having any individuals finish before 44th place, we earned a top ten finish in a very challenging field. As a point of reference, the winning team (Plainfield South, a southwestern suburb of Chicago) averaged 14:58 for its scoring runners! Seniors Tim Greiner and Nolan Meara led the way, with Wyatt Seal, Carter Lowe, Jaden Elgin, and Charlie Murray tightly packed about 20 seconds behind Tim. Based on a comparison with this year's varsity average scoring time to last year's Palatine team, we are nearly 15 seconds faster this year. Two of our varsity runners earned PRs; congratulations to Jaden Elgin and Charlie Murray! As we continue to gear our training to run our best races at the end of the season, we are excited about where we find ourselves.

The JV race at Palatine may well have been one of the finest JV races we've ever had, a race that showcased the phenomenal depth of the program. In a field of 28 teams and 368 runners, we put all eight runners in the top 16 overall and scored a very low 34 points, to win our first ever Palatine JV championship. Our scoring runners averaged 16:18 for 3 miles (16:55 estimated over a 5k), with a tiny 11.9 second scoring spread between our first and fifth finishers. All eight of them medalled (medals only went to Top 20), and seven of the eight ran a PR. Individually, Gus Talleur led the way, challenging for the win against what was actually a Mt. Prospect varsity runner. Gus took second place, the second highest individual finish we've had in Palatine JV. In fact, in our 11 previous trips to Palatine, we've had a total of five top-10 finishers in the JV race. This year, we had four, with the others very close behind. It was a dominant race, one that will hopefully springboard its members to even greater heights in the months and years to come.

TEAM RESULTS:

• Varsity - 9th of 30 teams, 206 runners in the race
  • Medalists: none
  • Scoring spread: 0:20 (15:40 - 16:00 over 3 miles)
  • Average time: 15:54 (16:30 5k approximation)
  • PRs:
    • Jaden Elgin, :06
    • Charlie Murray, :06
• Junior Varsity - 1st of 28 teams, 368 runners in the race
  • Medalists: all eight competing runners placed in the top 20 and, thus, earned medals!
    • Gus Talleur (2nd), Anthony Zangara (6th), George Donahue (7th), Alex Bendaña (8th), Gavin Smith (11th), Lucas Rammacher (12th), Charlie Gray (13th), Brendan Jones (16th)
  • Scoring spread: 0:12 (16:12 - 16:24, over 3 miles)
  • Average time: 16:18 (16:55 5k approximation)
  • PRs:
    • Charlie Gray, :34
    • Anthony Zangara, :23
    • Alex Bendaña, :20
    • George Donahue, :15
    • Gavin Smith, :12
    • Gus Talleur, :12
    • Brendan Jones, :10
• *UPDATED* Palatine Trip Historical Records