DGS Relays Recap

DGS Relays – 2/25/13

The DGS Relays meet has quite possibly the highest amount of quality teams that we encounter throughout the whole year prior to the IHSA State Meet.  Our goals rest on the blue oval in Charleston; so it is always a great opportunity to test yourself against the premier level competition that we will more than likely encounter at the end of May.

The 4 x 800m relay started the night off in style!  Our heat featured the likes of Sandburg, West Aurora, St. Ignatius, Hinsdale Central, Minooka, Neuqua Valley, Nile North, Lane Tech, Plainfield South, Thornwood, and Glenbard West.  Plus, the following teams placed at 2012 State meet; Lane (1^st), Niles North (2^nd), Sandburg (4^th), Minooka (5^th), and Hinsdale Central (11^th).  Tony Zea lead off the Trojans with a solid 2:02.6 and handed off the baton to Ryan Zemel in 3^rd place.  Zemel went out very aggressively to try and catch the lead two teams Sandburg and St. Ignatius and ended up running a 2:01.9.  Zemel was able to hang on and get the baton to Andrew Noll in 5^th.  Noll ran another solid split during this race of 2:04.5, which is another PR for Noll.  Noll then handed the baton to Zack Smith  who ended up running a PR in the 200 (25), 400 (55.3), and 800m (2:01.5) to bring the Trojans in 8^th place with a time of 8:10.61, which is currently the 109^th fastest 4x800 time in the nation thus far.  Here is a link to the Video that Mr. Zea recorded - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOF6tO_m2j0

The 4 x 200m relay has been completely remodeled since last year, it besides one returner track team member (Connor Dimmick) it is full of Track Rookies; Kyle Leto, Richard Olekanma, and Vonte Diggs .  Kyle Leto led out the relay with a solid 24.7 first leg, that put the Trojans in lead, then Dimmick ran the break and got the baton around to Olekanma in 25.3.  Olekanma (25.1) then opened up the lead coming down the home stretch.  He and Diggs had a very nice exchange, and Diggs brought it home in 23.1 for a total time of 1:38.08, which was good enough for 19^th place out of 31 teams.   This relay is a work in progress and these guys took another 2+ seconds off of their seasonal PR to run 1:38.08.  There still is room for a lot of improvements here so don’t be surprised when this relay is running much faster during the outdoor season.  Here is another link to a Mr. Zea Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jz7BtpP7O0

The final event of the night was the 4 x 400m relay that was composed of 3 sophomores and a freshman.  Similar to our 4x200m relay this group has only one member who was on the Track team last year, Jack McGinnis.  This young group does show a lot of promise and has the potential of breaking the F/S indoor record of 3:44.1 from 1965.  The relay competed well in their heat and was lead off with a strong first leg by sophomore Jack McGinnis (56.2), then Damian Margarites covered the two laps in 58.6.  The next leg was executed by Brendan Dingle in a 57.2 and had a solid exchange to Romeo Jones.  Jones covered the final 400m in 57.2 for a total time of 3:49.26.  For the majority of the relay this was only the second time running the 400m so far this season, so as they learn to run the 400m and dig into the level of hurt that is necessary during this race they will be paid back tenfold with pure joy and  triumph as they continue to improve! 

Also, here is a link to a meet recap done by Illinois Prepster