By Shannon Smith (@ShanSmith77)
Boy’s track and field competed at the Mid-Suburban League conference meet May 15 at Prospect High School. The team earned 108 points, placing second behind Barrington with 175 points.
One of the most anticipated races of the night was the 4×800 meter relay. Going into the meet, Prospect’s 4×800 team, seniors Michael Anderson and Greg Suarez and juniors Matt Cozine and Luke Filipic, was ranked second in the state behind York High School. They were favored to win.
Over the course of the race, the battle for first was between Prospect and Barrington. In the end, Barrington edged Prospect out with a new state best of 7:43.51.
Although Prospect didn’t win, they set a new school record and remained second in the state and fourth in the nation with a time of 7:44.19.
“It’s frustrating because you set a school record, one of the fastest time in the state, and you still happen to be beat the second week in a row by a team that just happens to edge you out by a second,” head coach Frank Mirandola said.
Suarez ran the final leg of the race.
“I knew Barrington was going to have a tough team,” Suarez said. “I was just trying to think of the scenarios of where [Barrington’s final runner] was going to be and what I had  to do to try and win the MSL, and I felt like I did what I could, but we came up a little short. It was still a great race, though.”
Looking ahead to sectionals and state, Suarez wants to continue to run solid and improve so the relay team medals at state.
Along with the 4×800 meter relay, the 4×400 placed second with a time of 3:31.07. The team was comprised of sophomore Kevin Sherwood, junior Teddy Eckhardt, Filipic and Suarez.
Mirandola thought the 4×100 meter relay and 4×200 meter relay had a great night as well.
The 4×100 team of senior Sam Garcia, juniors Brady Schwartz and Dan Marshall and sophomore Nick Konstantinou placed fourth with a time of 43.14 seconds.
The 4×200, also ran by Garcia, Schwartz, Marshall and Konstantinou, placed fourth as well with a time of 1:30.30.
According to Mirandola, the team’s biggest goal right now is to prepare for sectionals. He’s trying to establish the relays and identify who will have the best chance of making it down state in the various events.
“We’re putting those final puzzle pieces together,” Mirandola said. “And I think that we see that we have some guys that can go down in a couple events.”
The boys travel to Loyola Academy for sectionals Thursday, May 21.