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EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's boys track and field team scorched the rest of the field on a wet, rainy day Friday to capture Southwestern Illinois Boys Relays Meet.
Friday's weather for the season-opening Southwestern Illinois Relays meet wasn't the best.
Steady rain and wind combined with temperatures in the 40s to create less-than-ideal conditions to open the area's outdoor season at Edwardsville's Winston Brown Track and Field complex, but Edwardsville's boys team overcame the conditions to win the meet by two points over East St. Louis, the Tigers scoring 97 points to the Flyers' 95; Rockwood Summit of St. Louis County emerged third with 88 points, with O'Fallon taking fourth at 86 points and Belleville West finishing fifth with 55 points. Among area teams, Alton finished sixth with 44 points and Granite City took 10th with 12.5 points on the day.
“I was a little surprised with the team results at the end,” said Edwardsville coach Chad Lakatos. “Across the board, we did some things that I wasn't calculating throughout the meet; we didn't come in trying to win it at all, we were trying to get into our first outdoor meet and see what we've got. The kids competed well and held off a good East St. Louis team.”
Despite the cold, rainy conditions, “the guys stuck it out,” Lakatos said. “They saw the other guys competing and it being a coed meet, they saw the girls competing too, so it was one of those things where you have to step up and show a different mind-set, and they showed it. Our kids competed well and we still have a lot of work to do; we'll get back at it after spring break.”
Edwardsville's top performances on the day included Max Hartmann's win in the 1,600 meters, covering the distance in 4:43.22 and a win in the 4x800 relay, the team of Franky Romano, Roland Prenzler, Zach Walters and Jack Pifer taking the win in 8:20.43; the Tigers' 4,000-meter distance-medley relay team of Walters, Prenzler, Rodney Smith and Pifer finised second in the event with a time of 11:23.21 behind O'Fallon's 11:08.81 while Kenyon Johnson took second in the long jump with a leap of 21-5.5. In the throws, Cameron Kirkpatrick had a toss of 132-7 to win the discus throw while Blake Williams had a 44-9.5 to finish third in the shot put.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
