Lisle Sectional Recap: Boys Win First Sectional Title Since 2008, Qualify to State for 3rd Season in a Row!

IHSA CLASS 1A LISLE SECTIONAL (BOYS)
Lisle Community Park
Saturday, November 1, 2014

Men Bounce Back From Third Place Finish at Regional to Win 6th Sectional Title in Program History

After a third place finish the previous week at the Aurora Christian Regional, our men were gunning after Montini who beat us by two points, and Harvest Christian Academy, who won the Regional. One hour after the girls race began, six of our guys toed the line for their own shot at earning a trip to Detweiller Park for the right to race at the State meet.

All of the hard miles put in over the summer, all of the shins splints battled throughout the season, all of the weightlifting, all of the Whitlock workouts, all of the long runs in the rain, snow, wind, heat – all of that were stepping stones on our journey towards this meet to take aim at qualifying for the biggest and final meet of the year – the IHSA State Final.

On this day, to put it bluntly, our boys brought their “A” game to Lisle’s Community Park for their Sectional race. After the race, that led Lisle Head Coach Ken Jakalski to state to the throng gathered during the awards ceremony as the boys awards were being conducted in Lisle’s south gymnasium, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Westmont Sentinels ever run a bad race on this course.”

That is high praise, and the boys’ performance yesterday earned such praise from Coach Jakalski.

Our front trio set the tone and got out to awesome starts, and pulled the rest of our boys along. Unfortunately today, we were without freshman Ryan Pleva, who has been battling an injury since the middle of Regional week, so we were without a seventh man today. That meant our fourth, fifth, and sixth men were going to have to step up their game.

As the boys made their way up the hill and down over the bridge towards the mile, the yellow throwbacks were well entrenched in the lead pack. Tanner Chada of Aurora Christian was on his way to a Sectional title and had already broken away and established himself as the top runner in the field. He will be fighting for All-State recognition next week in Peoria. Three Westmont seniors – Nick Dea, Anthony Alessi, and Mitch Perrotta -- were in the top eight at the mile.

Our back trio also got out to excellent starts and had put themselves in excellent position to continue to move up through the race and do some real damage. Senior Tony Cordero, freshman Jake Juska, and sophomore Sam Asa were all running well and ready to make their move.

It was clear that our boys were moving well throughout the relative flatness of the softball fields. Our front trio were all in the top nine. The back trio were holding their own very well and continued to look strong at the two mile mark. As they began to emerge from the soccer fields, with the top two runners having locked up their positions, there was a battle brewing for position in spots three through eight. As Nick passed by Coach Dunne and his brother, Tom Dea, who was taking photos, he screwed up his face for the picture, and then proceeded to break the back of any competitors and pulled his teammate Anthony Alessi to finish 3rd and 4th overall, and become just the seventh and eighth runners in our program’s history (joining Henry Arndt, Fadi Bakhos, Nick Baldo, Kevin Barnacle, Chris Mannos, and Tommy Morrison) to break 17:00 on Lisle’s 5K course. Although Mitch would just miss out on the sub-17 party, he contributed another low score, finishing in sixth overall. That meant that we had three runners in the top six, a major accomplishment at any Sectional meet regardless of class.

Nick’s Sectional medal is the second of his career, and Anthony’s is his third. Mitch's Sectional medal -- the first in his cross country career -- became the 14th Westmont athlete to earn a Sectional medal in our program’s history. Our front trio had accomplished what they set out to do. Now it was up to our back trio to seal the deal to send us to Detweiller Park for a third consecutive season.

And they did.

Tony Cordero, after running well off of his best at Regional (he was sick last week), was determined to get back to where he should have been, and also to improve on his performance from last year’s Sectional. He did just that. Tony came home in 55th place overall. To illustrate how well Tony ran, his 55th place finish improved on his finish from Sectional last year by 40 places! Last year, he finished 95th as our fourth man! Then freshman Jake Juska turned in another outstanding race to finish as our fifth man in 71st place. Sam Asa followed soon to finish the Sentinel action in 86th place.

We had a raw score of 139 points, almost exactly the same as the ladies. We were feeling very confident about our chances and knew that we had just run a simply outstanding team race when it mattered the most, which is exactly what we have been aiming for all season.

After the boys race finished, the wait began. I am sure that any parents who were at the meet yesterday (and I talked to many of you) had the same feeling of being tortured by the long wait for the results to be posted. The girls results were then posted and we learned that the girls were on their way to Detweiller Park with their second place finish.

We were still waiting on the boys' results.

And it felt like that we kept waiting. And waiting. The girls awards were already done. They still hadn’t posted the boys results. Last year we weren’t even sure that we were going to qualify for the state meet and ended up finishing fourth with over 200 points. The difference was that this year, we knew we had run an excellent race and put ourselves in great position. Our raw score indicated that. We knew we were pretty secure in earning a qualifying spot.

Finally, the results were posted. And what we saw was completely unexpected. Coach Wolf, Coach Marose, and Coach Dunne couldn’t believe it.

Then it sunk in.

SECTIONAL CHAMPIONS.

Not only were we state-bound for the third season in a row and the ninth time in the last ten seasons, we had won the sixth Sectional title in school history, the first for the boys program since 2008 (we finished as State Runner-up that year). Our third place finish at Regional to Harvest Christian Academy and Montini had humbled us. Montini had beat us by two points, and Harvest Christian Academy had beat us by ten.

Yesterday, we we scored 2-3-5-47-61-(73) to finish as Sectional Champions with 118 points. Montini, who finished second at Regional, finished 2nd with 135 points. Beecher was third with 136 points. Harvest Christian Academy, the champions in our Regional, finished fourth with 168 points. Peotone, a fellow conference member, ran a great team race to finish fifth and earn the last qualifying spot to Peoria.

We came back to win a Sectional title. Third place in Regional to Sectional champions.

Sectional Champions after a third place regional finish. How many teams in the state can say they’ve done that?

It’s never been done in our program’s history. That is a testament to the hard work our boys have put in this season. Their hard work, their training, their conditioning – it all paid off yesterday. And now we’re headed to Detweiller Park for the 15th time in program history.

What an accomplishment.

What a day.

We also want to give an enormous shout out to our parents who came out to support us yesterday and all season long and for all of your support of your athletes this season, such as hosting pasta parties, providing meet snacks, and so much more. We hope that you will join us at Detweiller Park next Saturday for the ultimate race!

We also want to give another shout out to our Principal, Mr. Baldermann and our Athletic Director, Mrs. Wojtulewicz, for coming out to Lisle yesterday, and all of their support of our program.

Congratulations to our men on running a simply outstanding race and earning the right to run at STATE next Saturday! The guys will run one hour after the girls race at 10:00 am in the Class 1A Boys State Final.

6 DAYS LEFT UNTIL STATE!

GO SENTINELS!