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Schildmeyer, Wilson 1-2 finish pushes St. Charles East to ShaZam Division III Boys title

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ILXCTF - Mike Newman   Nov 9th 2020, 12:58am
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Schildmeyer, Wilson 1-2 finish pushes St. Charles East to ShaZam Division III Boys title

Fast final mile gives Luke Schildmeyer individual title; a west suburban feel in team race with St. Charles East, Naperville North, and York leading the way

By Michael Newman

[email protected]

Full Results

It was not the way to end the season running at Chillicothe’s Three Sisters Park instead of Detweiller Park that was just to the south. The ShaZam Club XC Championships offered one last chance to race to end an untypical 2020 season. St. Charles East’s Boys team finished their season in a typical fashion.

The Saints placed three runners in the top 10 to help them win the Boys D3 title with 121 points. Naperville North used a 22 second split to finish second (156 points). It was close for third with York (172 points), New Trier (175 points), and Barrington separated by only eight points.

When you have two of the top runners in the state leading the way, that is a good advantage to have. When you are running a COVID-19 meet where only allowed one runner in the championship race, then you have decisions to make. St. Charles East used their same line-up from a week ago placing Luke Schildmeyer in the championship flight while Micah Wilson ran Flight 3 with teammate Zach Loomis.

There was a pretty big carrot in front of Schildmeyer’s face before the start of his race. Micah Wilson had won Flight 3 running 15:35. It was the second fastest time of the weekend behind Drew Rogers and his 15:34 in the DI race on Friday entering the final race of the meet.

Austin Popplewell of Yorkville and Fiker Rosen of Quincy led a pack of around 25 runners through 4:59 for mile #1. Schildmeyer, Luke Wiley of Warren Township, Ryan Watts of Edwardsville, and Nick Falk of New Trier were comfortable with that pace. They knew that there was plenty of work still ahead. 

It was not that the pace sped up during the second-mile. It was that the pack slowed down while Schildmeyer and the other three runners maintained their pace. Schildmeyer and Watts led at 10:05 for 2-miles. Wiley and Falk were a second back but still in touch of the lead. Julian Head of Naperville North was five seconds behind but had moved into fifth.

Schildmeyer made a monster move at Lyons Township the previous week just after the mile that broke that race wide open. The East senior made another move like that just after two-miles that won him this race. Now it was a matter if he could catch Wilson’s time. Schildmeyer did that and more as he crossed the line in 15:33 for the course record and the championship win.

Ryan Watts had a breakout junior season and will be one of the top runners in the state in 2021. The junior ran 15:43 to finish second in the race, third overall. Nick Falk was third (15:46) with Luke Wiley next (15:53) and Spencer Werner of Loyola Academy (15:55) just finishing ahead of Arthur Graham of Naperville Central and Nicolas Dovalovsky of Neuqua Valley who were both timed at 15:56.

Division 1 Boys Teams Recap / Analysis

What could have been a plus for the top three teams in this race that were all from the suburbs west of Chicago was of the schedule that they were scheduled to run. St. Charles East runs in a tough DuKane Conference in triangular meets facing the same teams a number of times. The same held true for Naperville North in the DuPage Valley Conference. York was tested against teams from one of the toughest conferences in the nation in the West Suburban Silver. All three teams did not her the opportunity to run in the “glamour” races that took place in Suburban Cook County. They did get to tune up and get ready for the state series and this meet. That paid off for this trio of teams in the long run.

#1 St. Charles East, the 2019 3A champion, were considered the second team of the season behind New Trier. Their three races before this race showed that they were still state class. The Saints had a 73 second split in this race displaying how tough they were especially with the runners in the front. Zach Loomis was the team’s third runner behind Schildmeyer and Wilson placing 10th overall. Connor Murphy (54th) and Tyler Tobin (66th) were the team’s fourth and fifth runners.

#9 Naperville North ran their best race of the season in finishing second with 156 points. The Huskies had only a 22 second split on their top five runners that finished in the first 50 places. Julian Head finished 13th in the championship race and 21st place overall. The pack of Chase Burrell (31st), Gabe Ryan (33rd), and Tommy Paltzer (34th) separated by one second. Nicholas Williams was the team’s fifth runner placing 50th overall.

#4 York’s crazy season ended with an improbable third-place finish with 172 points. Their top seven was quarantined for two weeks forcing them to miss their conference meet. The Dukes came on strong to finish within five points of St. Charles East last week and then their performance of today. Mickey Vreeland led his team finishing ninth overall in the championship race, 12th overall. Ethan Summer rebounded from his race at sectionals to finish 20th overall. Jackson Geiger won Flight 1 which resulted in a 41st place overall finish. Colin Hill (46) and Garrett Schwan (72) were York’s fourth and fifth runners. Their top five split was 51 seconds.

#3 New Trier was three points shy of York in fourth with 175 points. The Trevians had a 70 second split on their top five that finished in the first 82 places. Falk’s fourth-place finish along with Charlie Siebert finishing 15th led their team. #10 Barrington only had a 27 second on their scorers that finished in the top 51 and finished fifth with 180 points. Joey Furlong led the Broncos finishing 16th. #2 Yorkville did run in this meet finishing 12 overall but did so running only four of their top seven runners from their sectional winning team.

Other Race Highlights

Jackson Geiger of York bided his time before making a move in the final mile to capture the Flight 1 win. Geiger was in second at 2-miles behind Ismail Tineh of Sandburg by just a second. Geiger pulled away for the win (16:22) hold off a hard charging Carter Hart of Barrington who finished second (16:27). Hart was 13th at the mile and then moved up nine spots in the second mile. Tineh ran 16:36 to finish third.

It is up to the teams to decide which race their runners compete in. Evan Cummins of Downers Grove North has been the team’s top runner in their final three meets of the season. At this meet, Cummins ran in Flight 2 which consisted of team’s fourth and fifth runners. Gabe Ryan of Naperville North ran 5:11 to lead a pack in the first mile that had Cummins and Nathan Summers of Yorkville in the front. Cummins opened up the pack in the second mile and three seconds ahead of Head. Cummins held on to that margin in the final mile to run 16:12 for the race win ahead of Head (16:15) and Barrington’s Ryan Fryer (16:23).

We know that Wilson won Flight 3 in this meet. He split 4:58 at the mile, 10:01 at 2-miles, and 15:06 at 3-miles on his way to 15:35 for 5-kilometers. The big mover in this race was Brandon Kamp of Naperville Central. He was 12 at 2-miles but moved up to finish second-place (fifth-place overall) by closing with a 5:03 mile. Zach Loomis of St. Charles East finished 10th overall as he finished third in this race.

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