Vince Zona wins the third section of the Boys Open Mile
If day two went anything like day one for the Illinois contingent posted in California for the weekend, it would be more than fine. Arcadia after all is the largest high school invitational in the United States. As an extra treat for the athletes, the biggest stars in American Track and Field come to visit. Matt Centrowitz and Allyson Felix served as ambassadors for the athletes. Although it rained on and off Saturday it did nothing to stop top performances on Saturday.
Afternoon Open Session-
As we said in the introductory with Neuqua Valley's emerging sprint relays, sometimes performing at a high powered meet is the best way to test the inventory. The open division affords such testing because there is no real worry of embarrassment. The best time of seven 4x100 sections was 42.44 by Bullard, CA- good but not great. The Wildcats ran three of the four runners from the 4x2: Myles Gascon, Kevin Sager, Dan Gaynes, Chris Muoghalu. The outcome was a third place finish in section two running 43.41.
Vince Zona (Jr., Lyons Twp.) had already come of age during the 2015 cross country season when he placed 6th in the state championship. Now it may appear he has taken a few leaps on the track as well. Zona won the third section of the mile in 4:19.98, pulling away late on the homestretch using a 58.5 last lap... Jared Borowsky (Sr., Stevenson) secretly made the trip and clocked 4:21.05 to take second in Section 2.
Andrew Best (Sr., Lyons Twp.) dropped a personal best 1:56.55 [58.57/57.96] in the 800 to place 14th overall. Best may be one of the emerging pieces for the Lions 4x8 relay machine later in the season.
Jaquere Williams (Jr., Neuqua Valley) will be a key factor for his new team during the upcoming state series. Williams went out and ran a solid 50.27 in the 400.
The Yorkville girls completed their long Arcadia tour with a 17th place finish in the Distance Medley Relay running 12:39.85.
Neuqua Valley used a team of Ryan Kennedy, Ryan Lukas, Aidan Livingston, Patrick Wolak in the DMR to place 13th with a time of 10:41.39. The splits were 3:17.77, 50.91, 2:03.04, 4:29.65.