Olech’s win in 1600 Meter Run secures 1A Boys State Championship for Harvest Christian Academy

 

Freshman Phillips stuns crowd with 100, 200 wins; Three events’ titles come from other than final section

 

By Michael Newman

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Charleston, Ill – Harvest Christian Academy’s Mathew Olech held his face in his hands after finishing second in the 3200 Meter Run at Thursday’s IHSA Class 1A Boys State Track & Field Championships at Eastern Illinois University. Anguish and frustration showed after the finish. He wanted the win. He wanted to get points for his team who was in pursuit of a state team title.

RESULTS | VIDEOS | PHOTOS

All that frustration came out for Olech in the final lap of the 1600 Meter Run. In his final race in a Harvest Christian Academy singlet, Olech stormed away from the field in a decisive manner in the last 200-meters of this race. Tears turned to smiles as he crossed the line as the state champion in the race. More so, Olech had secured the team title for the Lions.

 

Harvest Christian Academy scored 51 points to win their program’s first state track title. Salt Fork finished second with 38 points. Cowden-Herrick and Northridge Prep tied for third place with 37 points.

 

All four teams took different avenues to get to their destination points at the end of the meet. Harvest Christian Academy and Northridge Prep relied on distance athletes to score their points. Salt Fork had no distance runners, but got their points in the relays, sprints, and field events. Cowden Herrick on this hot and breezy day relied on a two-man team to score their 37 points.

 

Harvest Christian Academy scored in all four distance events, plus the 4x400m Relay, plus the Triple Jump. Daniel Doby got a point in that event finishing ninth.

 

Then it came to the distance events. Olech finished second while teammate Daniel Winkleman finished fifth in the 3200 Meter Run. The two runners came back in the 1600 Meter Run with Olech winning and Winkleman gain finishing fifth securing the team win. Hayden Colclasure finished second in the 800 Meter Run. Their quartets in both the 4x400m Relay and 4x800m Relay finished third.

 

“That frustration that I had in the 3200 Meter Run showed up in the final lap of the 1600 Meter Run,” Olech said after his win.

 

Olech let Latin’s Peter Bernhardt and Ryan Hardiman set the pace in the opening laps of the 1600 Meter Run in a pedestrian 2:14 for the first two laps. Olech and Winkleman were content to stay in the middle of the pack waiting for the right moments to make their move. Olech moved up on the penultimate lap and was Bernhardt’s shoulder as the bell sounded for the final lap at 3:21.5.

 

Olech made one move to take the lead on the back stretch and then made the killer move entering the final curve to cement his win. He ran his final lap in 59.36 seconds.

 

Jacob Belha of Sherrard moved from sixth on the final lap up to second with a huge personal best of 4:22.91. Hardiman finished third (4:25.24) just ahead of the double from Justin Mumford of Trenton-Wesclin that finished fourth (4:25.70). Winkleman ran 4:25.86 to place fifth.

 

The 1A Boys Meet started and ended with wins from Northridge Prep in relay events. There was an improbable start to the second section of the 4x800m Relay. Harvest Christian Academy’s Cannon Lambert shocked the near capacity crowd at O’Brien Field by running the first 400-meters of the opening leg of the race in an eye opening 52.4 seconds. Northside Prep’s Andrew Brockmeier, who said after his leg that he was shocked the pace was so fast, closed the gap on the second lap on Lambert who feeling the effects of that opening 400. Brockmeier took the lead and handed the baton off with the lead that Northridge Prep would never surrender.

 

The quartet of Brockmeier, Kambi Obioha, Mark Maska, and Aidan Martin gave the school their first individual championship running 8:00.77 for the win. Elmwood finished second (8:06.63) ahead of Harvest Christian Academy (8:08.23), and El Paso-Gridley (8:08.96).

 

The same quartet for Northridge Prep stepped to the line in the final event of the meet, the 4x400m Relay. Little did the four team members know was if they won the race and St. Joseph-Ogden did not finish in the top seven, they would tie for third place in the team standings.

 

That is exactly what happened.

 

Winnebago held the lead entering the final 100-meters of the race. Aidan Martin swung onto the outside of Lane 2 and just caught Bago’s Michael Cunningham at the line. Northridge Prep secured the win (3:25.50) just ahead of Winnebago (3:25.82). Harvest Christian Academy finished third (3:26.76).

 

Northridge at first did not realize what had happened when they were told they had tied for the team third place trophy. Shock turned into celebration was they heard over the Stadium’s PA system.

 

There were many improbable stories that happened in Thursday’s 1A Meet. The biggest was the tie for third place finish by Cowden-Herrick who has only two athletes on their team.

 

Daniel Lucas is the first athlete that started it off for the Bobcats in the Shot Put. Lucas, who was seeded #4 from sectional meets, unleashed a put of 55-0 to take the lead in the opening round of this four-attempt event. It was a personal best near three feet by this junior. That mark also put on the pressure on the rest of the field from the start. There was no athlete that would catch him. The closest was pre-meet favorite of Hayden Knott of St. Joseph-Ogden that had a 54-9.5 mark in the second round that would give him second-place.

 

10 points for Cowden-Herrick.

 

At the same time inside O’Brien Field, his teammate Jadon Robertson was doing double duty going back and forth from the Long Jump and the High Jump. He stayed at the High Jump when three competitors, himself included, remained in the first flight of the High Jump. Robertson said afterwards that he was a little nervous on the first two attempts which showed through his runup and take off. He was the first athlete up at 6-6.25 for the final attempt at that height. Everything flowed beautifully including clearing the bar for the apparent win. Drew Hurelbrink of Macon Meridian and Cameron Russell of Indian Creek failed on their third attempt finishing third and fourth. Karson Lewsader of Georgetown-Ridge Farm finished second out of the second flight clearing 6-5.25, the same heights that Hurelbrink and Russell had cleared. Robertson ended up finishing third in the Long Jump.

 

Robertson was not the favorite in the 110 High Hurdles as he was seeded #6 in the final section of the event. . Robertson exploded over the final five flights of hurdles to win his second state championship in running 14.68 for the win. Luke Myszka of Tri-Valley finished second (14.86) with Bennett Soltow of Forreston (14.95) and Nathan Kirby of Salt Fork (14.97) both under 15 seconds finishing third and fourth.

 

Cowden-Herrick had the team lead for most of the meet until Salt Fork passed them after the 300 Meter Hurdles and then Harvest Christian Academy after the 1600 Meter Run.

 

Yet this small school of 108 students from a town with less than 600 residents found a way to win a trophy. “Jadon and I have been friends all of our lives,” Lucas said holding the trophy. “We were hoping something like this would happen.  It did.”

 

“It was something that I had dreamed about before the meet,’ Robertson said. “It was a dream that became a reality.”

 

There were some improbable events that happened in this meet. That is what makes this state meet so special.

 

The first was from an athlete that had to be pulled off from the summer football practice field to keep him healthy for this meet. Tony Phillips from Kankakee Bishop McNamara is a freshman that already has three scholarship offers from D1 schools to play football. This 5-6 powerhouse of a sprinter showed this EIU crowd how fast he is and how fast he could become.

 

Top seed Aidan Laughery of Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley had to be scratched out of the state meet due to an injury. That left the door open for this freshman. Phillips got a good start out of the blocks and then exploded at 60-meters of the race. He crossed the finish line and just kept going passed the line of photographers waiting for him. Phillips ran 10.87 for the win with Caleb Lerus of Lycee Francais de Chicago second (10.97) and Ben Gilbert of Maroa-Forsyth third (10.99).

 

It was more improbable that Phillips would win the 200 Meter Dash. He was in the third of four sections of this event not running against the fastest sectional runners.

 

Phillips took care of that. The freshman got a great start out of Lane 8 and seemed to slow down as he crossed the finished line in what was then the event lead at 22.31. Gilbert followed in the final section crossing the line in 22.45 thinking that he had won. The senior had finished second overall behind the second win of the day from Phillips.

 

I checked IHSA records from past meets to see if any athlete had one a state championship from outside the final championship race. Since the only time someone could have done it was from the 3200 Meter Run in the regular schedule, then no athlete had accomplished that feat until Thursday afternoon when three track events state titles were decided outside the final race. Phillips’ win in the 200 Meter Dash was the third time of the day.

 

The first occurrence of this anomaly came in the 4x100m Relay. Hope Academy was racing outside in Lane 7 of the third of four sections of the event. Crisp exchanges and a speedy anchor leg from freshman Ryan Williams produced the fastest Class 1A time in the race this season with a 43.19 section win. Salt Fork followed in Section 4. They had the fastest sectional time (43.25) heading into this race. Salt Fork thought they had the state title when they crossed their line with the section win. Their time, however, was 43.35 and behind that of Hope Academy. The Storm finished second overall.

 

That motivated the team heading into the 4x200m Relay. It was close in that final section as Salt Fork prevailed for the win (1:31.00) just one hundredth of a second ahead of Maroa-Forsyth (1:31.01) and St. Joseph-Ogden (1:31.16).

 

The second occurrence of this happened in the 800 Meter Run. Eli Mojonnier of Bismarck-Henning had run 1:56.44 at a meet in Watseka on June 4 which heading into this state meet was the second fastest time in this classification. The junior wanted to be in the final section of the state meet in the 1600 Meter Run. He ran 2:01 to win his sectional. That time put him in the second of third sections of Thursday meet.

 

Mojonnier put himself in good position in his race passing 400-meters in third place at 58.9. The junior exploded around the turn giving himself the lead and the win in the section at 1:57.33. He would then have to wait to see what happened in the final section.

 

Hayden Colclasure of Harvest Christian Academy took the lead in the final 200 of the race and crossed the line in jubilation with the race win in Section of 4 (1:57.76) ahead of Northridge Prep’s Mark Masaka (1:58.26) and Andrew Brockmeier (1:58.31). Colclasure had thought he had run but had heard that Mojonnier might have won. Colclasure approached and asked if him if he had won. Mojonnier modestly shook his head. Colclasure immediately congratulated him.

 

Track Event Highlights

 

All the injuries and illnesses that Justin Mumford of Trenton-Wesclin had persevered through in his high school career finally paid off in the 3200 Meter Run. Miles Sheppard of Warsaw and Layton Hall of Arthur-Lovington paced the six-runner pack through 4:42 for the first 1600-meters. Mumford was just waiting for the right moment to go. The pace started slowing in the third part of the race. Mumford knew he wanted to take the lead with two laps left into the race.

 

His plan worked perfectly as he moved away from the pack with only Mathew Olech trying to stay with. Mumford ran 69.1 on his seventh lap. He knew was Olech was closing on the final lap. He responded with a 59.4 lap #8 to win a state crown in 9:18.26 ahead of Olech (9:19.91), Hall (9:28.10), and Sheppard (9:30.70).

 

Jameson Cluver of Watseka had the fastest time from the sectionals in the 400 Meter Dash. He held form in this race making up the stagger 250 meters not the race and then winning the final section and the state championship in a personal best of 49.89. Quinn Willard of Cornerstone Academy finished second (50.09) with Cameron Crow of Litchfield third (50.33).

 

Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley was a team to watch in Thursday’s meet before a rash of injuries forced them to scratch out of those events. The one man left standing was Isaiah Chatman who would run in both hurdle races. His chances for a state championship ended early in the 110 High Hurdles when he crashed into the first hurdle slowing his step the rest of the way. He finished 16th overall.

 

Chatman rebounded in the 300 Meter Hurdles. His friends and teammates were in the stands as he ran 39.11 to win the state title ahead of Bennet Soltow of Forreston (39.37) and Luke Myszka of Tri-Valley (39.37).

 

Field Events Highlights

 

Salt Fork needed some serious points to get the into team trophy contention. They did so in the Discus. Garret Taylor threw 166-2 in third round to secure the win in the event. Hayden Knott of St. Joseph-Ogden picked up second second-place finish of the day throwing 164-3 to finish second. Luke Hatten of Lebanon threw 159-4 to finish third.

 

Ridge Willard of Cornerstone Academy secured his win in the Pole Vault when he cleared on his second attempt at 14-1. He followed that up by clearing 14-6.5 on his second attempt, then clearing 15-1 in winning the state championship. Dustin Roberts of Carlinville and Charlie Gentile of Maroa-Forsyth both cleared 13-10.25 to finish second and third.

 

Sam Roszak of North Shore Country Day fouled on his final two attempts in the Long Jump. His second attempt of 22-1.50 was enough to claim the state championship ahead of Kaden Feagin of Arthur-Lovington (21-8.75) and Jadon Robertson (21-8.25).

 

Pre-meet favorite Will Ross of Waverly won the Triple Jump on his first attempt of 44-10.25. He bettered that on his final jump when he jumped 46-9 for the win. David Arney of Riverdale was his closest competition jumping 44-2 on his final attempt to finish second.