Plainfield North crew images by Andy Derk
Last week I talked about how excited the team was to compete at the First to the Finish Invitational and wow every scenario I had thought up of in my head was exceeded by our team last week. It started with a Thursday night meet at Plainfield Central featuring all the Plainfield schools. As coaches, we had gone in thinking that it would be just another Thursday meet and the real excitement would be Saturday but we were certainly wrong. The excitement started Thursday night and never ended! We had everyone outside of our top 10 run the meet and our kids ran outstanding. You literally could feel the excitement after the race. Sophomore AJ Peal, a newcomer to cross country, who had a PR of 5:26 in the mile during track season last year, ran 16:29 for 3 miles, that’s 5:29 average pace! AJ is a kid who really has embraced the sport this year and as a coaching staff, we’ve taken notice. His race efforts are clearly demonstrating his new level of commitment.
After all the excitement on Thursday, it just built more excitement for what was to come at Saturday’s First to the Finish Invitational. On Saturday I traveled down to Peoria with our team to meet up with head coach Andy Derks and our top 14 guys who, along with coach Derks, had stayed the night in Peoria Friday night. I had almost forgotten how much fun it was to ride on a school bus with no leg room for over 2 hours! As we entered the park, it became very clear to our guys that this was a different type of race environment. There were tons of people, tons of teams, music, a great environment to race in but also the type of environment that can cause you to lose focus with all the distractions. Our guys could feel the energy of their environment and combined with their own energy, it was a recipe for success.
We started in box #3 right next to the defending state champs Hinsdale Central and knew it would be important to get after it right from the start with the size of the field. We had given our athletes splits to hit for every mile prior to the race so they would have an idea of what they needed to hit each mile to get their goal times. Racing wise, it was certainly a different type of race than we had seen all year. We had a couple of kids not get out well and they paid for that. However, almost everyone got out really good and ran faster than our projected first mile pace. As a result, we exceeded our projected split times and overall times all around! Junior Jack Sebok continued his march towards elite status running a 15:07 and placing 24th, a 38 second PR. Freshman Ben Olstott also continued his stellar freshman campaign taking off 44 seconds on his previous PR to run an outstanding 15:51, did I mention he’s a freshman? I was so excited during the races that I felt like I had ran the race from sprinting back and forth and all over the course to yell encouragement and verbal cues. I was joking with my fellow coaches that they should put a coach’s water station in the middle of the field.
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2014 Top 7 FTTF 17th Overall Sebok- 24th-15:07 Thurman- 93rd-15:49 Otstott- 97th-15:51 Suchy- 126th-16:05 Schrank- 146th-16:12 Bruyere-179th-16:28 Wells-193rd-16:34 |
2013 Top 7 FTTF 42nd Overall Sebok-191st-16:27 Schrank-262nd-16:54 Thurman-265th-16:56 Wolendowski-290th-17:09 May-345th-17:46 Conley-351st-17:51 Gibson-355th-17:57 |
At a first glance, our race may not seem like a success, we placed 17th out of 49 teams. Last year in the same race, we placed 42nd out of 45 teams. Our #1 last year would not have made our top 5 this year. Our best time on a 3 mile course last year was 16:26, 5 guys have exceeded that already this year. Last year we had only 5 guys break the 17 minute barrier, this year, already, we have 14 guys with 3 other guys within 5 seconds of that 17 barrier. Out of those 14 guys, 4 are seniors, 2 are juniors, 7 are sophomores and 1 is a freshman. What a difference a year makes! As I stated in my first blog, I’ve never worked with a group of kids more motivated to get to the next level. We see it, the kids see it, the parents see it and everyone else in the state will see it, this program is going to the next level and I’m glad to be part of the journey! It’s very exciting times at Plainfield North High School!