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East St. Louis back on top with 3A Boys State ChampionshipPublished by
Above Photo: Sandburg’s Tom Brennan, Dylan Jacobs, Chris Torpy, and Sean Torpy celebrate their 3A record in the 3200 Meter Relay at Saturday’s 3A State Meet (Mike Newman Photo)
SWC Powers East St. Louis and Edwardsville go 1-2 for 3A; Torpy Brothers lead Sandburg to 3rd place trophy
By Michael Newman
Charleston, Ill --- It had been a long dry spell for East St. Louis-Senior at the IHSA State Track Meet. The last time that we saw the Flyers on the podium was the 2008 Season when they won the 2A State Championship ahead of York and Springfield Lanphier. The Flyers scored 35 points in the final five track events to win their 11th state championship in the school’s history. Their winning total of 54 points was 12 better than 2015 champion Edwardsville (42 points). Sandburg finished third behind three impressive wins in distance events. The Flyers picked up 11 points in the first two events on the track. They picked up an unexpected point as they finished ninth in the 3200 Meter Relay. Then came the 400 Meter Relay in which Eastside had the top time in the state during the season. The first three of Jarrell Anderson, Roosevelt Davis, and Kevin Johnson kept themselves close to South Elgin and Minooka who passing the stick around cleanly. Marlowe Mosley got the baton and took overtaking South Elgin’s Jaurice Thomas and holding off Minooka’s Justin Wolz to take home the championship by nine hundredths of a second ahead of Minooka (41.64 – 41.73). South Elgin placed third (42.01) just ahead of Rock Island (42.05). The Flyers picked up eight points in the 800 Meter Relay. Neuqua Valley looked the best on their first two exchanges and then their third runner Kevin Sager took off giving the Wildcats the advantage. Ryan Lukas came off the curve and accelerated pulling away with the win with a school record (1:26.72) and a state championship. East St. Louis’ Jarrell Anderson and Minooka’s Justin Wolz came to the line together. Both teams were given 1:27.09 times with East St. Louis finishing second. The gold rush began for the Flyers as they scored 13 points in the 400 Meter Dash. Octavian Wells (Grant Township HS, Fox Lake) looked just as good in the finals as he did in the prelims when he ran 47.01 out of lane 8. Wells had the lead by 200 meters and motored home with the state championship (47.39) more than a second ahead of Chris Thompson (Lemont HS). Deonte Anderson ran just five hundredths of a second behind Thompson to finish third (48.50) while fellow Flyer Marlowe Mosley ran 48.81 to finish sixth. It was then Delano Anderson’s turn to get points as he finished seventh in the 300 Hurdles. The 200 Meter Dash clinched it for East St. Louis as Roosevelt Davis finished fifth (22.51) while Mosley placed sixth (22.52). Both runners were both on the track fifteen minutes later where their team was the favorite in the 1600 Meter Relay. They picked up the win for the second straight win (3:15.35) holding off Neuqua Valley (3:16.00). Minooka finished third (3:17.31). ~~~ Edwardsville did what they needed to do to finish second. AJ Epenesa broke the IHSA State Meet Record with a 205-11 throw in Friday’s prelims. That held up for the win in the event. Epenesa finished second in the Shot Put (60-4 ½) behind Lockport’s John Meyer. The sophomore had a 61-2 mark to win the event. The event should be a fun one next season as both Meyer and Epenesa will be back. Devonte’ Tincher also picked up points as he jumped 22-3 to finish seventh in the Long Jump. Travis Anderson started his work on the track in the 400 Meter Relay. The Tigers ran 42.14 to finish sixth overall. After running a wind aided 13.59 in Friday afternoon’s prelims, Anderson would be the favorite. William Session (Belleville East HS) would be waiting for him having run 13.88 Friday. It looked like Anderson was starting to pull away at the fifth hurdle. Session made a move in the final two hurdles and surged trying to catch Anderson. He fell short but by only one hundredth of a section as Anderson defeated the defending champion (13.71 – 13.72). It was faster than the state record (13.79) but the wind was over the wind allowable of +2.0 m/s. “I told William after the race ‘now I know how you feel’. I asked him one question. How were you able to handle it,” Anderson said after the meet. “He told me that I needed to stay humble and respecting where you came from.” The outcome was different in the 300 Hurdles final. Roland Amarteifio (Evanston Township HS) got out of the blocks well and had the lead on the curve. Anderson made a move at the end of the curve but Session was just starting to move. He caught Amarteifio on the ninth hurdle just as Anderson started to fade. It seemed like session was out of control over the final hurdle. Truth was that he wanted the state title badly. He ran a personal best 37.46 to leave the high school scene as a state champion. Amarteifio was close only seventeen hundredths back in second (37.63). Anderson ran 38.04 to finish third. It was a great day for teams from the Southwest Conference. East St. Louis-Senior and Edwardsville took the top two team spots and had four teams in the top twenty. There were five state champions from the conference as well as 16 all state individual athletes and five relay teams that were all-state. ~~~ Sandburg made a statement last fall during the cross country season winning the 3A State Championship and then finishing fourth at the Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon last December. Their trend continued this track season winning the national championship at the New Balance Indoor Championships in the 4 x 1 Mile Relay. They came to Charleston wanting more. The Eagles did just that. The 7:42.70 that they ran at the Downers Grove North Sectional in the 3200 Relay the week before was not all out. They were saving that for this weekend. Sandburg qualified for the finals running 7:50.95 but they did not run Sean Torpy and Dylan Jacobs who were focusing on the 1600 Prelims. Oak Park-River Forest ran the fastest time in the prelims (7:45.66) and were looking for a similar performance in the finals. The first leg of this race usually has all twelve teams close together at the first exchange. Oak Park’s Sean Lonergan ran a 1:53.9 opening leg to give the Huskies almost a four second lead ahead of Sandburg and Hinsdale South. Dylan Jacobs got the baton from Tom Brennan knowing he had work to do. Jacobs did that closing the gap from four seconds to two seconds on Oak Park’s Jack Monaghan. Hinsdale South, Danville, Prospect, and York were in the next spots. Sean Torpy defined this race running one of the best legs in the 4x8 at the state meet that I have seen. He closed the gap on Oak Park’s Alex Staples in the first 200 meters taking the lead on the curve. Don’t get me wrong. Staples was running fast. Torpy just had a gear that no one else had in this race. The two second lead that Oak Park had on the second exchange had changed to a three second lead for Sandburg as Torpy had run a 1:50.7 split. Kimanthi Johnson had some work to do for Oak Park but it did not look likely he would catch Sandburg especially with the way Chris Torpy was running. The margin continued to grow as Torpy had one thing on mind: the finish line and a state record. He ran a 1:52 anchor split crossing the line in jubilation. Sandburg had run 7:37.36 breaking the 2006 State Meet Record of Jacobs by close to three seconds. Their time is the seventh fastest Illinois time ever for the 2 Mile Relay / 3200 Meter Relay if you want to include the four teams that ran in that great race in 1976. For the 3200 Meter Relay, they are in elite company as only York’s teams from 2000 and 1985 are faster. Sandburg still has time to take it lower if they choose. Chris Torpy only had 60 minutes to recover from that race and get ready for the 800 Meter Run since the IHSA decided to speed the meet schedule because of the chance of bad weather. By the time that Torpy stepped to the starting line, it was a 100% of sunshine as well as a 100% chance of fast times. Demetri Panici (Lincoln-Way North HS, Frankfort) pushed the pace the first 350 meters of the race but the pack closed on him with Torpy, Connor McCue (West Aurora HS), and John Partee (Plainfield South taking the lead going through the first 400 in 55 seconds. Torpy accelerated down the back stretch with Partee in close pursuit. Torpy made one more move on the final curve that was definitive. The battle was for second now that Torpy was on his own. Just like his brother in the 4x8 relay, he had a gear in this race that no one else had. He crossed the line improving his personal best by two seconds (1:50.88). McCue finished second (1:53.38) just edging O’Fallon’s Chris Conrad (1:53.68) and Springfield’s Heath Warren (1:53.94). Chris stuck around on the infield so that he could watch his brother Sean run one last time. With the way that Sandburg was running on this day, would Sean bring home one more title for Sandburg? The pace was slow for this race with all 12 runners within a second of each other as they passed in 64.4 and 2:10.6. As they approached the bell lap, Soren Knudsen (Minooka HS), Torpy, and Irwin Loud (Oak Park-River Forest) emerged from the pack and took the lead passing 1200 meters in 3:16.0. Robby Prescott (Downers Grove North HS) tucked behind the three runners waiting for his moment to move. Torpy came out of the curve with the lead but Prescott responded also trying to pass the Sandburg senior. Torpy had energy for one more move which he made with 150 meters to go. As he came of the curve, the lead was a little more than five meters ahead of Prescott and Knudsen. He was reaching for everything that he had in the final 50 meters. He found his way to the finish line crossing in 4:15.13 just a second ahead of a charging Prescott (4:16.52) and Knudsen (4:17.10). The slow pace due to the fast schedule along with a strong wind from the south made the winning time slower than expected. Nevertheless, it was the third state championship of the day for Sandburg. It was also the first time that brothers won state championships in different individual events. ~~~ Highlights Josh Eiker (Galesburg HS) opened the eyes of everyone at O’Brien Field on Friday running the 10.34 in the 100 Meter Dash prelims. He said afterwards that it was his perfect race. Eiker did not need the perfect race in the finals. He had a good start at the start and pulled away for the win (10.48) with a little wind at his back (+2.3 m/s). It was close after Eiker as the next five runners were only four hundredths of a second within each other. Derrius Rodgers (Lockport Township HS) led the pack finishing second (10.66) while Hoffman Estates’ Declan Rustay and Camron Harrell (Bradley-Bourbonnais HS) finished third and fourth both given the same time (10.68). Eiker has showed all year that he is the best 200 runner in the state. He showed it in his final high school race. He had the lead coming off of the curve. The -3.9 m/s wind in his face did not slow him down as he crossed the line with the win as the only runner under 22 seconds (21.66). Rodgers was again second (22.13) ending a banner senior season. With Ja’Mari Ward graduating, the next great horizontal jumper will be Cameron Ruiz (Lakes HS, Lake Villa). The junior had a sensational Saturday winning both horizontal events. He improved his personal best to 24-0 to win the Long Jump ahead of Antonio Tate (DeKalb HS) who jumped 23-1. Ayo Abiona (Sandburg HS, Orland Park) jumped 22-11 ¾ to finish third just ¼ inch ahead of Proviso West’s Ja Shaun Steward. The final round of the Triple Jump was wild as four athletes went over 48 feet in the final three jumps. Ruiz improved his personal best by more than two feet jumping a wind legal 50-6 for the state championship ahead of West Aurora’s Davion Cross (49-9 ¼) and Chris Walker (49-2 ½). Ja Shaun Steward jumped 48-7 to finish fourth. The 3200 Meter Run lacked energy for the first six laps as no one wanted to take the lead. With the first 400 in 71.8 and the 800 in 2:21.9, ten runners were within two seconds of each other. Eryk Yunk (Belvidere North HS) reluctantly took the lead the next two laps as they passed the 1600 in 4:42.4. Irwin Loud moved to the front as the paced stayed the same as the third half went through in 2:20 and 7:02 overall. The pace had to start to ramp up and it did. Jack Aho (Grayslake Central HS) took the lead with Loud, Connor Horn (Neuqua Valley HS), and Blake Evertsen (Hinsdale Central HS) staying close at hand. Martin Barr (Niles North HS, Skokie) and Jared Borowsky (Stevenson HS, Lincolnshire) stayed close behind as the next lap was run in 68 seconds. This was definitely a kicker’s race. The question was who? Just before the bell lap, Borowsky took the lead and started to open up the lead as Aho made the effort to stay with. The Grayslake junior closed in on the lead but Borowsky sensed that he was coming. The pace picked up as he pulled away in the final stretch. In that final 100 meters, Borowsky looked back three times to see if Aho was coming. He wasn’t. Borowsky crossed the line with arms in the air not believing he had won (9:07.47) closing in a 57.3 final lap. Aho was next (9:11.20) improving on his third place finish from the year before. Loud out leaned Barr for third with the two only separated by three hundredths of a second. After the track events ended at 2:45 PM almost two hours ahead of when they were supposed to, two field events were still in progress not ending until close to 4:15. Zachery Bradford (Bloomington HS) captured the Pole Vault championship (16-1). Cooper Jazo (Lakes HS, Lake Villa) and Izaiah Webb (DeKalb HS) both cleared 15-6 with Jazo placing second. At the beginning of January, Camron Donalton (West Aurora HS) had no thoughts of competing in track. He was just out for the basketball team. After that season was completed, he was coaxed by the West Aurora track coaching staff to give the High Jump a try. In his first meet at the end of March, he cleared an amazing 6-8. Seven week later, he won the state championship clearing a personal best 6-10. Aaron Smith (O’Fallon HS) ended his High School career on a high note as he cleared a personal best 6-9 to finish second.
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