Richtman Makes History, as Varsity Runs 11th and Frosh Soph take 3rd

For the first time in the 47 year history of the Kaneland/Eddington Invitational, we had an individual champion. Matt Richtman used his second surge to overtake the lead and went on to win by :07 and set a personal best on the KHS course. This was Matt's second invitational win of the season.

Webster started the next wave of 2-5 scoring Knights who ran just 33 seconds apart. Sam’s course best 16:49 was followed ten places later by Nosek, with a course :12 PR. Heiser plugged in a career best 17:19 for three miles, just ahead of Kantola, who ran a :15 PR at KHS.  Duffey and Purcell also established new KHS course bests, with Ben’s time a full 2:39 better than his previous best at home.

The Frosh Soph crew backed up a strong effort at HCA by bringing home a third place trophy as a squad. Occhipinti broke into the 16’s for the first time on three miles with a 6th place start. Jacob Wielgos set a course PR and took 12th overall with a very tough 17:14, our fifth fastest team performance on the day. Aidan Lodwig set a career best time, and improved by 2:48 from the Silver Bone last October. 

Drake Nemec crushed his career three mile best by :53, serving as our fourth scorer. Petrik and Riedel were next in the chute, with Petrik setting a :17 career PR and Riedel :34 better as our #6.

Kyle Orczykowski and Dalton Klingensmith continue to feed off of one another in racing. Kyle Or with a 1:10 drop from ‘15 and Dalton dropping :56; both career PR’s. Seth Nosek surged and surged some more, running to a grueling :43 PR over three miles. Blake Finn also improved on his career best for this distance by shaving off :45.

The remaining frosh soph runners established new career bests for three miles. Abruzzo knocked off :16 and beat 104 other runners. Scotty Dunne crushed his PR by 1:44, while Jablonski was :03 faster than his career best.  Arty Patrick showed tremendous toughness, just like in practice this past week and smashed his previous PR by 2:42!  Holder ran to a season’s best by :03, and Garrett Woods annihilated his Peoria time by a full 9:12!

Our Open was not what we anticipated. CJ Girolamo was pushing for a Top 35 finish when he suffered a seizure at the 1.5 mile mark. Teammate and close friend, Kyle Konrad, stopped in his tracks to help support CJ until the EMS arrived. Thankfully, Kyle’s support and that of Girolamo's parents kept CJ safe. Teammates passing by this scene twice were impacted by the confusion and knew that a race was not the primary objective. That being said, Messina and Wells finished with a flurry, and Crimmins managed a career best time of 21:23. Cole Rutter raced for the first time in 2016, and despite the pain in his legs, he clocked in a fast finish of his own at 30:28 to put an exclamation point on our great day.