IHSA State Final Recap: Boys Finish 17th in 9th Trip to Detweiller in 10 Seasons

Saturday, November 8 2014 - IHSA Class 1A State Finals


IHSA Class 1A Boys State Final
Detweiller Park, Peoria

Saturday, November 8, 2014

 

SENIOR TRIO RECORDS IDENTICAL 16:07s TO LEAD SENTINELS TO 17TH PLACE TEAM FINISH

 

For the third consecutive season, the ninth time in the last ten seasons, and the fifteenth time in program history, Sentinel men toed the line at Detweiller Park on November morning to compete in the IHSA Cross Country State Final.

 

And what a journey we took to get there. Just after the 2013-14 school year ended, summer running began on June 9th. We welcomed several new faces to Westmont Cross Country – freshmen Tom Dea, Jake Juska, Ryan Pleva, and Jasper Requiron. In addition, sophomore Sam Asa joined cross country this year after playing football last year. We also welcomed back Sam’s fellow sophomore Jacob Nader as well.

 

We also welcomed back four seniors for the final season of their careers – Anthony Alessi, Tony Cordero, Nick Dea, and Mitch Perrotta.

 

Throughout the summer, the hundreds of miles that were recorded, we laid the groundwork for what we hoped would be a return trip to Detweiller Park and an improvement on the previous season’s 21st place finish.

 

In early August, practices began, and in the sweltering late summer heat, we conducted workouts, we had long runs, we ran doubles for almost three weeks. By the time early September rolled around, we were itching to put our hard work to the test in the first meet of the season.

 

In our traditional home opener against Timothy Christian, it quickly became apparent that we had three front runners in Nick Dea, Anthony Alessi, and Mitch Perrotta, that would be hard to beat in many meets throughout the season, and that we would need to work on the gap between that front three and our #4 and #5 runners. Tony Cordero would serve as our #4 man for nearly the entire season, and freshman Jasper Requiron stepped into the #5 man spot. Our new faces also ran strong races in the first race of their careers. We were excited about the rest of the season. We won that home meet to get our dual meet season off to a great start.

 

We did not run a complete varsity team at Plainfield, but our Frosh-Soph crew finished 15th in a deep field of mainly 2A and 3A schools. Then we returned home and squeaked out a close win over ACC to keep our perfect record intact before we made the trek down to Peoria on an unusually cold early morning in mid-September to run at the First to the Finish Invitational. In that loaded meet of top 1A schools, we placed a very strong 10th place overall in a field of nearly fifty teams.

 

After Peoria, we headed out to Plano and swept another dual meet, extending our perfect record for another week. Then we ventured west again to Bureau Valley, where we earned a second place trophy in the varsity race! Unfortunately, by mistake, the trophy that they gave us was actually the second place trophy for the girls’ varsity race.

 

That girls varsity team that earned second place just so happened to be Seneca. We would exchange trophies and get the correct second place trophy at our home finale a week and a half later. In the meantime however, we returned home for our third home meet of the season and extended our perfect streak on Tuesdays against Elmwood Park and St. Joseph’s. That Saturday, we headed to Oakhurst Forest Preserve for the Charger Classic Invitational, where we finished fourth.

 

It was around this time of the season that injuries began to hit us. We didn’t realize it at the time, but the injury ended up sidelining our fifth man for the rest of the season after this point. After the aforementioned trophy exchange with Seneca’s girls’ team, we then proceeded to continue our perfect dual meet season with victories over Lisle, Plano, Seneca, and Walther Christian in the Westmont 500. In that meet, Nick Dea and Anthony Alessi added their names to the short list of Sentinel men who have run sub-17 minutes on our home course –quite an achievement!

 

We returned the favor to Lisle by visiting their home course for a very cold—and snowy—Mane Event. There, we finished a strong fifth place in a strong field of Class 2A and 3A schools. In the final Tuesday meet of the season, we earned another trophy, this time a third place trophy at the Ross Greiter Invitational of the season. The two teams who beat us – Morris and Yorkville (who did not run their top varsity guys) – both are 2A schools. They were the only teams to beat us in Tuesday meets all season long.

 

Morris would go on to finish fourth in their own regional and qualify to the East Peoria Sectional. Yorkville, on the other hand, went on to repeat as State Champions in Class 2A with their top duo, the Hoffert twins, finishing as individual State Champion and State Runner-up – that’s the first time in Illinois cross country history that a pair of brothers finished 1-2 at the State Final.

 

Although we didn’t have our sights set on a team state championship like Yorkville did, it was nearing championship season, and we fully intended on returning to Detweiller Park for the third consecutive season. With that in mind, we headed west to Amboy on Columbus Day as our final tuneup before kicking off championship season. In another cold meet, we finished fourth in a loaded field of Class 1A teams. We were ready to rock and roll through the state series.

 

We returned to Lisle’s Community Park for the second of three times this season. The boys were out to avenge last season’s bitter loss to Sandwich at the Conference meet – we lost to Sandwich by just two points. Our seniors were going to make sure that did not happen again. Our senior front trio took three of the top five spots, and were backed up by strong performances from our fourth man, fellow senior Tony Cordero and freshman Jake Juska, who ran an outstanding race to finish as our fifth man. Sam Asa, Ryan Pleva, and Jacob Nader also ran well to help contribute to the Sentinel victory, reclaiming the Interstate Eight Conference championship for the first time since 2012.

 

The following Saturday found us on Aurora Christian’s Oakhurst Forest Preserve for the first round of the State series – Regional. There, we hit a speed bump in our journey. Going into this race, we were wary of Montini (their girls are 2A, but their boys are 1A) but confident that with another solid race we could dispatch them to repeat as Regional champions.

 

Montini ended up beating us by two points. But another team didn’t get the memo: Harvest Christian Academy out of Elgin. Neither us nor the Montini coaches had anticipated Harvest Christian Academy coming out of nowhere with a great pack to win Regionals by ten points over Montini, with us finishing third, twelve points out of first. Nick Dea, Anthony Alessi, and Mitch Perrotta all finished in the top five to earn Regional medals.

 

Looking back, hitting that bump in Regionals was a blessing in disguise. The week following that defeat, the boys team was committed to putting on their best performance yet of the year at a course familiar to us: Lisle’s Community Park, where the Sectional championship would be held.

 

And boy, did they come ready to run at Sectional with a trip to Detweiller Park on the line. Our senior trio set the tone by taking three of the top six spots overall to earn Sectional medals. Our back trio followed that up with excellent performances of their own. It was clear at the end of the race that collectively as a team, we’d just run our best race of the season. We were feeling very good about our chances to head back to Detweiller Park.

 

Then we got the word from Lisle’s assistant coach, Matt Sullivan. Actually, let’s correct that. What we got was a very unexpected word from Lisle’s assistant coach.

 

We were heading back to state for the third consecutive season! But that wasn’t the unexpected news.

 

Not only were we heading back to state, but we actually ended up WINNING the SECTIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!

 

Coach Wolf, Coach Marose, and Coach Dunne were all stunned. We knew the boys had run extremely well, but we didn’t think we’d won the meet.

 

But we did.

 

For the sixth time in school history and the first time since 2008, we were Sectional Champions. Third place in Regionals to Sectional champions. How many programs can say they’ve done that?

 

On to Detweiller. We departed on Friday morning, stopped at Omega for breakfast, where as per tradition, Nick Dea ordered his enormous pancake – or at least that’s what I think was. Anyway, we drove the three hours to Detweiller Park, practiced on the course, went to Avanti’s for dinner. It was business as usual. We were hoping to follow up last week’s awesome Sectional performance with just as awesome a performance on Saturday morning in the State Final.

 

As the gun fired to start the girls race, the boys began their warm up. They cheered on the girls where they could, but were focused on their race. For four of our seniors, it would be the final race of their careers and they were going to make sure it was their best races. For Sam Asa and Jake Juska, it is hopefully the first of multiple times they will make this trip to State.

 

As the girls ran in a very deep field to 22nd place, the boys were making their way up to starting box #28.

 

About thirty minutes after the girls race ended, at precisely 10:00 am, the gun fired to begin the Class 1A Boys State Final.

 

As usual, Anthony and Mitch gout out to quick starts, with Nick following close behind as has been the trend all season long. That trio would be side-by-side-by-side for nearly the entire race, just like they have been nearly all season long. They were very close at the 800 meter mark, and they continued to hold up that pace throughout the race.

 

Our back trio were also off to strong starts, and we were in good position at the half-mile mark. The Sentinel men swung around the top of the course and began the trek down along Highway 29 towards the mile mark.

 

Our front three seniors had set personal goals to break the 16:00 barrier at this meet at Detweiller Park. That’s a 5:20 mile pace over three miles. As they crossed the mile mark, all three of them were under that pace, with Mitch and Anthony crossing in 5:14, and Nick hitting the mats in 5:17. Tony, Sam, and Jake soon followed in another pack.

 

Just like we asked the girls team to do, we asked the boys to make their move in the “triangle” – and they did. Nick caught up to Anthony and Mitch and by the time they burst out of the triangle and reached the two mile mark on their second trip up the hill, the three of them were running side by side by side. Tony, Sam, and Jake also had their pack going and were running well.

 

The six Sentinels once again crossed around the top of the course, made their way back down along Highway 29 and cut across the course to make their way up the hill for the third and final time up towards the finish.

 

For Nick, Anthony, and Mitch, it was a race against the clock to break the 16:00 barrier. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not very friendly towards cross country runners on this day. There was a steady wind that almost certainly added at least ten seconds to many runners’ times. In the end, Mitch caught Nick and Anthony at the last step and finished just ahead of them in 65th place. Nick was one spot behind in 66th, and Anthony was 68th. In what was perhaps the perfect ending to their high school cross country careers, all three seniors finished with identical times—16:07.

 

16:07, 16:07, and 16:07. That’s pretty cool. The trio’s 16:07 places them 12th, 13th, and 14th on the Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.

 

Even cooler, Mitch, Nick and Anthony now rank 21st, 22nd, and 23rd respectively on the Top 25 Times at State list. They are three of the fastest runners that we have had in our 37 year history. The three of them are now linked forever in the history books of Westmont Cross Country.

 

Quite appropriate, isn’t it?

 

After Mitch, Nick, and Anthony moved themselves into the history books, our back trio were moving well up the hill towards the finish line in the hopes of securing a top 20 finish at state after last year’s 21st place finish. Our fourth senior, Tony Cordero, ended up as our fourth man in 17:45, good for 177th place in a very deep Class 1A field. Just moments after that, Sam Asa finished the race of his life to finish in 183rd in a lifetime best 17:52, and freshman Jake Juska ran another outstanding race to finish in 193rd, just missing out on the sub-18:00 party in 18:06.

 

Our six boys ended up scoring 45-46-48-142-148-(158) for 429 points and earned what they had been gunning for all season long: A top 20 finish at state. The 429 points placed them 17th in the team standings!


Congratulations, gentlemen, on an awesome season—Conference Champions, Sectional Champions, and 17th at State! That clearly shows that all of your hard work throughout the entire season -- and for our seniors, the last four years -- has paid off. Every athlete today ran a lifetime best for 3 miles, in the most important meet of the year. As a coach, what more can you ask for?

 

We hope to see many of you back in the spring for what we hope will be another fantastic track season. Coach Wolf and Coach Dunne would love to continue coaching you in the spring. If you are doing a winter sport, we wish you the best of luck there, and if you choose to do a different sport in the spring, we wish you the best of luck there as well. We hope to see you back next fall for another run to Detweiller Park.

 

Finally, we must thank all of our parents, siblings, friends, alumni, staff members, and friends of our program for making the trip down to Peoria for the State Final, wishing us luck, bringing food for us, and of course for their support throughout the entire season. We could not have done it with out you all.

 

To our four seniors -- thank you for all of your dedication and effort to over the last four years. It has been truly a pleasure to coach all of you in cross country and track. We still have one more track season with you all, but we want to wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors after you graduate in the spring and begin the next chapters of your lives. We hope you'll stay in touch with us in the future!

 

Finally, we're happy to announce that two of our seniors -- Nick Dea and Anthony Alessi -- have elected to continue on with their seasons and run in this year's edition of the Nike Cross Nationals - Midwest Regional which will be held this coming Sunday at LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Indiana. We wish we could continue to coach you this weekend in Terre Haute, but we cannot due to IHSA regulations. Best of luck, guys!