2A Boys Preview: Nalley Record Attempt, Wide Open Team Race

None of the six races on Saturday will be as wide open as the 2A Boys' team race. Over the year, MileSplit has ranked Morton, St. Ignatius, Glenbard South, and Benet #1 in the state at different times. Normal U, Chicago Payton, Woodstock, Marmion Academy, Kaneland, and Marion all have solid arguments to finish in the top three, so your guess is as good as ours for the finish order of the noon race.

Glenbard South put in the most impressive regular season performance at the First to the Finish 2A race, which solidified their #1 spot for the following four weeks. They did it with a mix of upper and underclassmen, including Jochum brothers Tim Jochum and Thomas Jochum and frontrunner Jaden Frederick. An airtight 3-5 pack was enough to defeat the Benet Redwings at the Trinity Sectional by two points. Benet's Finn Richards is a top-five individual contender in a fantastic 2A field. Three other runners were within 40 seconds of Richards, but a gap back to the fifth runner sunk Benet. These two team performances were two of the strongest of the sectionals. 

But a dominating showing at the Jacksonville sectional from Normal University and Marion showed that both teams would be right with the northern squads. The Pioneers ran six within 30 seconds of Mason Hart and Sachit Muduli.

Marion did it with a two-minute 1-5 split... which is excusable when star Dylon Nalley is your #1. Marion is a compelling pack, with not just Nalley but freshman brothers Raphael Greer and Gabriel Greer, who are rapidly improving. 

What will Morton bring to the table? Few teams have been as volatile as the Potters, still looking to replicate their success from the 2020 ShaZam season. Morton goes as Josh Weeks, Yonas Wuthrich, and Layton Knoop go. 

The Woodstock Sectional was a razor-thin race between champion Marmion, Kaneland, and Prairie Ridge- with Grayslake Central close behind in one of their best runs of the season. John Daffenberg leads Marmion, who were CCL champions and are deep through all seven. Kaneland produced three all-sectional boys in Evan Nosek, David Valkanov, and soph Evan Whildin. Will Gelon is Prairie Ridge's frontrunner, and he challenged Trey Sato before finishing second in 15:36 at the challenging Emricson Park. Their pack is characterized by a more varied spread among their top 5. 

Mix all these teams at Detweiller, and you get... well, who knows? We consider there to be about ten teams in trophy contention.

While the team's race for the 2A boys is wide open, perhaps we can consider the individual race open and shut. As we tend to discuss whenever we have a dominant individual boy in Illinois, we once again ask the question: can Dylon Nalley break the Detweiller course record? This is the first time we ask the question where the record is now held by former Hersey superstar Josh Methner rather than Craig Virgin. The official time is 13:49.86. Perhaps the easy first answer to that question is, why not? Nalley ran 14:00 at the Richard Spring Invite to barely miss adding his name to the list of sub-14:00 runners (with eight others on there right now).

Good conditions and a disciplined race for Nalley can help get him close, but things will have to break his way a little concerning his feel on the race. Where is his mind about postseason running, as well? He will undoubtedly hope to rectify any errors he made from his NXR performance last year, so Nalley may wish to fight another day after defending his state title.

Amazingly, Nalley is so far ahead of the field because this is an all-time field of front-end depth for 2A, even without Ethan Hogan of Columbia, who unfortunately had to end his state series early with an injury. Sterling's Dale Johnson gave Hogan a run in the 3200m at the 2023 state track meet, and with a 14:28 2A win at First to the Finish, he has been one of the state's fastest regardless of class all year. His only loss this season is to Nalley, Genisio, and Josiah Hortin at Peoria High. Still, his state race looks better after a solid win at the Geneseo Sectional. 

Trey Sato looks like he will play the role of a dangerous lurker in the front pack with his 49-second 400 speed that does translate to the end of races. Although he has run 14:43 at Peoria this year, his 14:42 at Palatine and 15:25 at Emricson Park suggests that much faster things are coming for Sato. Will Gelon was not too far behind Sato at Emricson either. His 3-mile best is 15:17, but he will almost certainly crush that at state.

A breakout runner this year is St. Ignatius senior Matthew Conroy, who finally made it into the sub-15 club at Palatine and then did so twice more and has not lost since that date. He finished 46th in 15:45 in the 3A state meet last year. Conroy employs a strong long push-out and may prefer to dictate what the pack is doing in the middle portions of the race. He was 6th in the 2A First to the Finish Race but has improved since then. 

Other returning all-staters are Julian Baker of Mt. Zion, Evan Nosek, Weeks, Ishan Patel of Woodstock, Connor Carlson, Adan Cordova, Caleb Mathias of Champaign Central, and Jaden Frederick. Dylan Gehl of Geneseo, Owen Morgan, Mekye Lomax of Marion, Naif Al Harby of Sycamore, Mason Hart, and Luis Flores of St. Laurence are additional runners looking to burst into the all-state contention for the first time.