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5th place finish in 17 school field, the best Lane Tech finish in about 20 years!

Lane beats Prospect, Lyons, Schaumburg, Libertyville in this very competitive meet.

The Prospect Knights Invitational is traditionally Lane Tech's toughest track invitational of the regular season. This season was no different as this meet featured schools with very solid track teams in Niles North, Elgin, Naperville Central, Zion Benton, Prospect, and York among others. Last year Lane Tech finished a respectable 11th out of a 22 team field. This year, Lane Tech saw a leap of improvement as they jumped to an eye opening 5th place finish out of 17 school. The York Dukes won the meet with 128 points. This meet featured a state and national best time of 7:43.6 in the 3200 meter run by York High School.

Lane Tech scored first place finishes by Gerald Turner in the 110 meter high hurdles (14.5), the 4x100 meter relay (42.92), and the 4x200 meter relay (1:31.47). Some other point scorers for Lane was Jay Jordan (2nd place) in the 110 meter high hurdles, Kenny Blanks (4th place?) in the 200 meter dash (23.4?), Sam Pellegrino in the Discus, Tory McAllister in the Long Jump, and Fuad Salami in the 200 meter dash (22.4). Lane coach Kris Roof ran his best runners today, but held off on running them for multiple events. He wanted to not overwork his runners because sectionals and city finals are next week.

State Cross Country Champ Evan Jager (center) from Jacobs was upset by Kevin Havel of Hersey in the 3200 meter run. www. LaneTechFan.com photo

Gerald Turner (Left) won the 110 meter high hurdles. Fuad Salami anchored the winning 800 meter relay and finished 2nd in the 200 meter dash.

"I improved my time from last week (Highland Park Invitational)....Coach [Roof] thinks I can finish in the top 3 at the city championship meet next week...but I want to get my time down to 50 seconds" said Chris Anton. Chris Anton ran a season best in the 400 meter dash (51.68).

Lane's performance at the Prospect Invitational was very impressive. This was the highest Lane Tech has finished at the Prospect Invitational since probably over 20 years ago when Lane Tech won the Prospect Invitational in 1988. Lane Tech assistant coach Anthony Jones said he remembers a few years ago when Lane scored only a few points at this meet. Now we performed to the point where we finished in the top 5. Along the way, Lane Tech beat suburban schools: Prospect, Lyons, Libertyville, Schaumburg, and Hersey among others. That is an impressive list of schools that the Lane Tech boys track team has beaten. I'm not sure there are too many Lane Tech teams that can say they can beat a list of schools like that. But success for this this team is not measured by victories. this is a very hard working group of individuals. They practice in the hallways and outdoors in the cold winters, when other teams practice indoors. Their hard work is paying off with on field success.

The team ended this meet like they do every meet with the cheer: "STATE POINTS." Coach Kris Roof is getting this team to believe. If Lane can score state point this year it will be the first time a Lane Tech boys track team has scored state points since 1995. But Lane still has to take care of business in the city. City Sectionals are this Wednesday, May 2nd (3:30pm) at Hansen Stadium. Then city finals is Saturday, May 5th at Hansen. Lane will be the heavy favorite to win city this year over Mather and Morgan Park.

PROSPECT INVITATIONAL

team scores

York 128, Zion-Benton 101, Niles North 78, Naperville Central 69, Lane Tech 68, Prospect 51, Hononegan 45, Lyons 38, Hersey 37, Maine West 32, Schaumburg 29, Libertyville 20, Carmel 19, Maine East 18, St. Patrick 17, Elgin 16, Jacobs 8, St. Charles North 8.

individual placewinners

3200 Relay — 1. York (Fry, Sulkin, Hinchly, Kuczwaara) 7:43.6, 2. St. Charles North 7:49.2, 3. Lyons 7:51.1; 400 relay — 1. Lane Tech :42.4, 2. Zion-Benton :42.8, 3. Niles North :43.3; 3200 — Havel (Hers) 9:00.3, 2. Jager (Jcbs) 9:01.5, 3. Actien (York) 9:07.4; 110 high hurdles — 1. Turner (LT) :14.5, 2. Jordan (LT) :14., 3. Ziegenfuss (Pros) :15.2; 100 — 1. Jozic (MW) 10.8, 2. Turner (NiN) :11.1, 3. Freidheim (York) :11.3; Big Boy 100 — 1. Giese (StP) :11.7, 2. Tartaglia (York) :11.8, 3. Hibner (York) :11.9; 800 — 1. Tewolde (Elg) 1:56.4, 2. Hunt (ZB) 1:31.9, 3. Garstka (Lyons) 1:57.9; 800 relay — 1. Lane Tech 1:31.1, 2. Zion-Benton 1:31.9, 3. Prospect 1:32.3; 400 — 1. Hunt (ZB) :49.2, 2. Thomas (ZB) :50.1, 3. Wilson (MW) :50.2; 300 int. hurdles — 1. Mafany (NiN) :39.4, 2. Haab (Hon) :40.0, 3. Ziegunfuss (Pros) :40.0; 1600 — 1. Havel (Hers) 4:18.7, 2. Fry (York) 4:21.1, Couch (NaC) 4:21.6; 200 — 1. George (ZB) :22.2, 2. Salami (LT) :22.4, 3. Fox (York) :22.7; 1600 relay — Z1. ion-Benton 3:22.8, 2. York 3:25.0, 3. Niles North 3:26.3; F/S medley relay — 1. Zion-Benton 3:36.9, 2. York 3:40.5, 3. Niles North 3:40.9; long jump — 1. George (ZB) 22-9.25, 2. Kimberly (Hon) 22-1.5, 3. Friedheim (York) 21-2.75; high jump — 1. Wilson (NiN) 6-4, 2. Bellmore (Lib) 6-2, 3. Petty (NaC) 5-10; triple jump — 1. Smith (NiN) 44-8.25, 2. Freidheim (York) 43-0.5, 3. Washington (ZB) 42-11; shot put — 1. Hibner (York) 57-8.75, 2. Torresso (Sch) 54-5.5, 3. Whistley (MW) 51-3.25; discus — 1. Gausmann (NaC) 159-3, 2. Stubbs (Hers) 151-10, 3. Mintern (ZB) 146-3; pole vault — 1. Sego (NaC) 14-0, Michel (NaC) 14-0, Zars (York) 13-9.