Wheeling HS Boys Track 2006

Sectional @ Palatine - The Wildcats walked away with 4 qualifiers in 5 events on friday night. This sectional was as deep as any that I have attended. There were over 100 qualifiers from this sectional, the minimum would have been 32. The Cats first qualifier was soph. Abel Rangel who jumped 22' 0" in the Long Jump setting a new school soph. record. Nick Bledsoe qualified on his last throw in the discus and also the shot put. Robert Kamentsev qualified in the triple jump jumping a school record 45' 8". The biggest surprise of the night came in the 800m run, Derrick Moy finished 7th but ran the qualifying time of 1:57.5 to earn his second trip downstate. It was a 1.5 second personal best. The was full of season best by the young wildcats who only graduate 3 senior athletes. The 4x100m and 4x200m relays both ran season bests, along with the 4x800m relay which was run with 3 frosh-soph athletes. Soph Ken Diedrich can within .6 of breaking 10:00 for the 3200m run, Freshman Kevin Richardson ran a personal best 54.5 along with Junior Jan Szarwark run of 55.6, senior Bobby Zelm ran a personal best 16.6 in the 110m H..Hurdles. (Pictured at right State Qualifiers Nick Bledsoe, Derrick Moy, Abel Rangel and Robert Kamentsev)

Varsity Conference @ Wheeling Friday Night. - Congratulations to Conference Champions Nick Bledsoe - Discus, Robert Kamentsev - Triple jump and High Jump

F/S MSL Conference @ Palatine (Monday)

Glenbrook South Inv. -

Palatine Relays - After returned late from McHenry we rose early to get ready for the Palatine Relays. The same 4 who placed 2nd at McHenry in the F/S sprint Medley finished in 3:47.5 to win the relay at Palatine. In the distance Medley the Ken Diedrich, Kevin Smith, Dan Diaz and Derrick Moy ran to finish a strong 5th place in 10:55. The Discus trio took on a deep Fremd team, set a new meet record, but Fremd outdistanced the cats by 10 feet to extend the discus meet record. Nick Bledsoe se a new Palatine Relay individual meet record throwing the discus 181' 0". Dan Diaz ran a personal best in the 300 I. Hurdles running 41.2 finishing 6th putting himself 9th on the Wheeling All-time list. The Long Jump relay finished in 2nd place and the triple jump relay was third. The High Jump relay won the event for the second night in a row. (Kamentsev, T. Austin, J. Austin)

McHenry Relays - This relay meet allowed us to show off our field event depth. We finished 2nd place with 49 points, behind Hoffman Estates 79 points. The Cats won 4 field event relays. The High Jump, Long Jum, Triple Jump and Discus. The discus was the showcase event of the meet as the trio of Nick Bledsoe, Alex Sicard and Chris Mata set a new meet record for total distance of 457' 9". Nick Bledsoe throw a state best 182' 10" (or at least that was as far as they could measure since he hit the baseball outfield fence about a foot and half up.) He followed that up with a throw of 176' 0" on his next attempt. Alex Sicard threw a personal best 138' 1", and Chris Mata also PR'd with a toss of 136' 9". In the High Jump, Robert Kamentsev, Tyler Austin and Jarrett Austin teamed up to jump 17' 7" total. In the Triple jump, Robert jumped a respectable 44' 2", and was followed by Freshman Shainn Gill jumping an impressinve 39' 7". Pat Splon helped to secure the event win with a jump of 37' 0". In the Long Jump, Robert jumped a personal best 20' 8", and teamed up with Tyler Austin and Abel Rangel to win the event.

On the track our F/S sprint medley finished 2nd, which included soph Phil Rifkin, Pat Splon, Freshman Kevin Ward and Soph Norbert Gajos. Finishing 3rd was the 6400m relay which included Kevin Smith, Peter Maslanka, Elio Albavera and Ken Diedrich.

MSL Division meet @ Hersey - A new format for determining the division champion, same end result, Prospect ran away with 185 points, Buffalo Grove 98 and Wheeling finsihed 3rd with 83 points. We attempted to put together the best lineup we had moving up frosh-soph runners to fill out lineups. We producted 57 points in the field events alone, with 4 individual event winners. Robert Kamentsev winning the High Jump and Triple Jump, and Nick Bledsoe winning the shot and discus. On the track our best finish was 3rd in the 1600m relay and the 800m relay. We had solid performances but our lack of depth hurt us in the end. We had several frosh-soph runners help make the relays competitive.On the Frosh-soph level we moved up several runners, and still managed a 3rd place finish ironically with 83 points again.

The Streamwood Inv has wonderful weather also, as has most of this spring. The Wildcats finished 3rd on the varsity level, and 2nd with 112 points on the frosh-soph level. We moved up a lot of younger athletes to give us an indication of what were capable of. The 3200m Relay team of Norbert Gajos, Ken Diedrich, Elio Albavera and Derrick Moy finished 3rd in 8:32.7, Steve Barshak and Bobby Zelm finished 5th and 6th in the 110m H. Hurdles. Robert Kamentsev won the HJ and TJ, while Nick Bledsoe won the Shot and Discus. Nick was backed up by Chris Mata who placed 6th in shot with a personal best 43' 1", and 5th in the Discus in 133' 5" The frosh-soph throwers dominated also going 1-2 in both the shot and discus. Shainn Gill almost pulled off the upset in finishing 2nd in the triple jump. Other second place finishers included Brian Mendoza - 800m run, Tony Segura - 3200m run, and the 3200m Relay.

The Bartlett Inv was another successful event. As always the weather is wonderful, which help make for great performances. The varsity finished in 5th place out of 16 teams, while the frosh-soph finished 4th. The field events continue to lead the way for the Wildcats. On the varsity level we had 4 event winners, Nick Bledsoe won the discus in a school record 171' 10", and the shot in 54' 1" Both were personal bests. Robert Kamentsev followed up with a win in the High jump with a jump of 6' 4", and a personal best leap of 45' 4" in the triple jump. Other varsit placers included Able Rangel 4th in the long jump, Tyler Austin 3rd in the high jump, and the 4x200m relay with 3 frosh-soph runners (Phil Rifkin, Kevin Ward, Abel Rangel and Junior Tyler Austin) ran 1:35.1 for a season best.

We finished the triangular season with a 3-3 record. The meet were used to work on seed times, and help to detemine who the best are in each area. The meets have no bearing on the division meet.

The outdoor season began this week with a split against Buffalo Grove and Rolling Meadows. BG 86, Wheeling 60 and RM 40. We had many solid performances. The frosh-soph won with 93 pts defeating both BG and RM. The most promising performances included Tyler Austin jumping 20' 4" in the LJ along with Soph. Pat Splon jumping 20' .5" Also in the 200m Dash Kevin Ward 24.2 and Pat Splon 24.3. Justin Apuli had a busy day finishing 2nd in the 100m dash in 11.4, plus leading off the 4x100m and 4x200m relays. Nick Bledose started the Discus where he left off throwing 166' 0" in his first efforts of the season.

Congratulations to Robert Kamentsev and Nick Bledsoe for qualifying for the unofficial indoor state meet last saturday. Nick finished 8th with a throw of 51' 10". Robert finished 5th in the high jump, jumping 6 6" setting a new indoor school record. He also qualified in the triple jump and finished 12th.

The indoor season recap will be coming soon.

Track Fans keep Friday, May 12th, 2006 on your Calendar. Wheeling Hosts the MSL Varsity Conference meet!! We get this honor every 12 years! Junior High Track athletes keep checking back here for information how to get FREE tickets to the meet.