The Minooka SmithStrong Invite Looks To Be One Of The Top Boys Meets In The State

Sprints

An absolute avalanche of powerful sprinters will lead to exciting events all over. There is a pretty interesting clash between young and old in the short sprints that could lead to a hot 100 and 200. Oak Park River Forest brings their returning state champ in the 100 in hopes to score big points across the board. Caleb Schulz ran well at the Gans Zeedyk invite, with a 10.70 and 21.84 in a double win. He will go up against Zion Morrison of Homewood Flossmoor who ran 10.64 and 21.73 at the Norm Armstrong invite last weekend. Morrison had an incredible indoor season and is carrying that through to the great outdoors. He will match up nicely with Schulz in the short sprints and will give the returning state champ a run for his money. Morrison is not entered in the 100, he will be running 4x2 110mH and 200. The 200 looks to be the event of the day, as Dontrell Young of Oswego returns to the track after missing out on all of indoor. He is entered in the 200 with a 21.90 and will keep Schulz and Morrison on their toes. Cody Muhlbauer of Normal West will be up with Schulz in the 100. He set a PR of 10.79 at the Norm Armstrong invite last week and he was 6.87 in the 60 indoors. He never lost at that distance and he will be a force in the 100 as well. Unfortunately, Max Smith of Minooka will be running frosh, so we won’t see him matchup against anyone near his PRs. He is slated to run the 100, 200 and 400, and I don’t see him losing any of them. Even though he’s solo, he will still put up some great times. If we scale up to the 400, we will see Dontrell Young really step into his element. Young is one of the top returning 400 runners in the state, he has an outdoor PR of 48.48 in the 400 and sits far ahead of the rest of the field. Expect runners like Dallas Amos and Deshawn Preister of Evanston and Edward Mason and Rajan Anthony of Neuqua Valley to compete for second. All four of these athletes have PRs in the low 50 seconds, with Mason being the only one under 50. Neuqua Valley has a number of guys who could replace Smith or Mason and still run well in the 400. I still don’t think any of them will challenge Young, but you could see a slew of guys under the 50 second border that follow in Young’s wake. 

Relays

The 4x1 will be the closest race of the entire meet, there are almost 5 teams that are right at 42.70 that will be jockeying for the win. Batavia is narrowly seeded ahead of the field with a 42.50. Their squad closely resembles the squad that ran 1:30.51 during indoor and I think they are the narrow favorites in this event. There are a lot of teams that have jumpers running in their 4x1s, so I seriously have no idea how fast it will actually be. Teams like Normal West and OPRF will take their jumpers and match up against teams like Neuqua Valley and Evanston who are running traditional sprinters. At the end of the day, there’s almost no way of predicting who I think will win. All I know for sure is that it’s going to be very close. The 4x2 is more strung out than the 4x1, Homewood Flossmoor ran 1:29.92 WITHOUT Joaquin Jordan and Zion Morrison. Now that they have their top 2 sprinters equipped, it’s going to be very hard to take the Vikings down. That being said, Batavia is going to do their absolute best to square up with HF in hopes to take a win. They are running the exact same team from their 4x1 so they are well capable of running a fast time. Batavia is also going to be in the hunt for a win in the 4x4. Their squad ran 3:27.19 during indoor and they are running the exact same team here. They will match up with a stacked Neuqua Valley team in an attempt to take the win. Neuqua, in theory, should have a 4x4 around 3:22, however they haven’t had a 4x4 with all of their top guys yet. They are still holding out on us at Minooka, only putting in two of their three elite 400 runners in the lineup. I still think they will be competitive but Batavia is going to be a hard team for them to beat. 

Distance

A couple stars stand out above the rest in distance, they will light the track on fire if they end up racing each other. Tommy Nitz of Huntley is slated to run the mile, he will be searching for another win. He ran 4:16 at the Mike Stogies Relays invite last week and is in a good position to win here. I don’t see anyone who can match his closing speed here, I think he will get the win easily. The closest runner to Nitz will be Francesco Benelli of Batavia. The senior ran 4:22 and 9:13 during indoor. If he can lock on to Nitz, there’s a chance he can hang on until the very end. Mateo Ramiro Garcia of Orland Park Sandburg will be right there with them. More of an 800 guy, his outdoor PR sits at 1:56.86 and he has a 4x8 split PR of 1:55 which he ran last week. His 1600 PR is a 4:22.60, I would prepare for something much faster than that. If we scale up to 3200, we’ll see Evan Nosek of Kaneland take his rightful seat on the throne. Unfortunately, his teammate, Carson Kaiser, won’t be joining him, as he’s running in the frosh division. The sophomore superstars from Plainfield South, Alex Batsala and Dylan Buturusis, will attempt to compete with Nosek in the 3200. Another person that will. beup there will be Braden Hoff of Lincoln Way Central. Hoff is more of an 800 guy during track, but his cross country PR of 14:30 says that he can hold together for a solid 3200. Please take his seed time of 9:36 with a grain of salt, I think he will surprise you guys. If we move back down to the 800, you’ll see an entirely different playing field. Nolan Lamoureux of Lockport is moving up from the 400 to take the favorite spot here. He ran some really solid 600s during indoor, capping out at a ridiculous 1:21.85. His range is unmatched, and he will likely walk away with a dub. He will be joined by Aiden Swanlund of Normal West. Swanlund is an 800 merchant with a huge 4x8 split PR of 1:52. He is a valuable piece in Normal West’s 4x4 and he will use his speed to challenge for the win here. 

Throws

There will be a three way showdown for the shot put title here, big time marks are on the way. Gavin Pecor of Batavia is the favorite in the field. He threw an intergalactic 58’ 1” during indoor and sits way ahead of everyone else. He already threw a toss of 56’ 10” to win the Les Hodge invite, I think he will take the win here. If anyone can step up to him, it will be Jonathan Sibley Diggs of Oak Park River Forest. He threw a 6 foot PR in the shot during indoor for a colossal 57’ 1”. He is more adept at the discus, but I believe he could challenge Pecor in the shot if he has a good day. And don’t forget about Enijel Shelton of Evanston, who threw 55’ 10” during indoor as well. Shelton was Mr. Consistency, he hit a mark of 54 feet or higher at five of his eight meets during indoor. If Pecor and Sibley Diggs are off, he could step in and win with a throw of that caliber. Out of these three, Sibley Diggs is easily the strongest discus thrower. His shot put improvement during indoor has translated nicely to the discus and he has seen immediate success in his old favorite. He threw a 17 foot PR on his second throw of the season, his mark was 167’ 8”. That mark leads the field by almost 10 feet, he will be hard to beat in that event. The Plainfield South throwers of Brennan Culpepper and Nicolas Grigsby will be in the mix with Pecor for the discus. They both throw similar marks, Culpepper sits at 152 feet and Grigsby sits at 148. Pecor has a PR right in that range as well which will make the mantle of second place highly contested. Be prepared for some big marks in both throwing events.

Jumps

Oak Park River Forest has a vice grip on the jumps and they won’t let up for any reason. Kwabeni Osei Yeboah of OPRF is one of the most talented athletes at this meet and he’s expected to win both the long jump and triple jump. He is the only returning long jumper in the state who has hit a 24 foot long jump, expect him to win handily here. Homewood Flossmoor has two to three guys that could compete with him as well. Kellin Maclin and Nolan Lewis both exceeded 23 feet last year but they haven’t been quite as prolific during indoor. If they can return to their previous marks, they will push Osei Yeboah for a much more difficult win. In the triple jump Osei Yeboah will get competition from Alex Austin of Normal West. Austin saw big improvement during the indoor season with a PR leap of 45’ 7”. It’s not quite on the level that Osei Yeboah is on, but it’s not a mark to sleep on either. OPRF will also dominate the high jump, with brother Malik and Marquill Griffee both taking top positions. Malik was 6’ 6” during the indoor season and he leads this field by a serious margin. Marquill has already jumped 6’ 3” during outdoor and he will look to join his brother on the podium. Freddie Hassan of Kaneland will try to wedge his way between these two brothers and score some points for the knights. In just his first meet back, he leaped over 6’ 4”. He is a returning all state athlete and he has a PR of 6’ 7”, so don’t be surprised if he dethrones Malik Griffee and takes the win. Jeremiah Cain of Oswego, similarly to Hassan, just got back to track. He, also like Hassan, has a PR of 6’ 7”. He could very well walk away with the win, but he needs to be back in his usual range for it to happen. If you thought OPRF was done, you’re wrong because they also have Lukas Brauc who will look to win Pole Vault. Brauc hit a mountainous 16’ 6” during December and has been terrorizing the WSC Silver in vault ever since. All he has to do is hit a calm 15’ 6” and he will likely take home the win here. Cooper Bowman of Minooka is the only athlete within his stratosphere, he vaulted 15 feet during indoor. He is going to have to pull something special off if he wants to beat Brauc, but he will at least put up a serious mark here.