Boys’ and girls’ teams from 12 schools traveled to North Central College in Naperville for the Mid-Suburban League Indoor Invitational over the weekend, with the Schaumburg boys edging out Palatine 70-68 to take the title, followed by Prospect in third (57), Barrington in fourth (56) and Hoffman Estates in fifth (47).
On the girls’ side, Palatine had a more comfortable victory, scoring 117.5 points to come out ahead against Barrington’s 97.5 points. Prospect finished third (68), followed by Fremd (44) and Hoffman Estates (42).
Buffalo Grove’s Kevin Salvano set a meet record in the 3,200 meters with his 9:10.05, which just edged the 9:10.2 that Conant’s Zach Dale set last year. Salvano ran away from the field with Palatine’s Graham Brown, and the two battled the entire race. Brown took the lead with three laps to go, but Salvano responded and was able to open up a gap in the final lap to win by nearly five seconds.
“I felt good and ran a really good race,” Salvano said. “It was actually good that Graham pushed me like that, otherwise I wouldn’t have run my best today.”
Dale needn’t feel too bad about losing the meet record — he got another one later in the morning. The Conant senior ran the 1,600 meters in 4:14.11, breaking the mark of 4:14.34 set by Conant’s Tyler Schneider in 2012. Dale didn’t have the benefit of someone pushing him in the race, as he ran alone and beat the field by more than 15 seconds. Hoffman Estates Matt Petersen finished second in 4:31.7 while Palatine’s Michael Zach finished third in 4:32.51.
Prospect finished first among the MSL East schools with 57 points. Its top performers included Mike O’Malley who finished second in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.01 seconds. He was also on the 4×200-meter relay, along with Sam Garcia, Vinny Lai and Brady Schwartz, which finished second overall in 1:34.78. Prospect won both the 4×400-meter relay (3:34.58) and 4×800-meter relay (8:02.62).
Hersey finished the meet with 36 points, and was led by Kyle Svoboda, who finished second in the 400-meter run (51.79). He was also part of the 4×800-meter relay that finished second, along with Kevin Ziegenhorn, Grant VonderLippe and David Rodriguez. Hersey’s Cole Monckton won the triple jump with a leap of 42 feet, 10 inches.
Wheeling finished with 33 points, topped by Mike Evans’ second place finish in the triple jump (42 feet, 4.5 inches). Buffalo Grove ended up with 23.33 points. Elk Grove Village, led by senior Paul Ifianayi’s victory in the 400-meter run (50.68), scored 17 while Rolling Meadows finished with 11.
For the girls, Prospect topped the MSL East Schools with 68 points. Maya Mason won the 55-meter hurdles (8.49) and finished second in the 200-meter run (26.60). Jes Skudlarek jumped 5 feet, 5 inches to win the high jump, Cassidy Selep finished second in the pole vault (9 feet, six inches) and Brooke Wilson finished third in the 1,600 meters (5:11.50).
Wheeling finished the meet with 35 points, led by Alanah Greenberg, who won the shot put with a throw of 39 feet, 7 inches. Hailey Dammeier finished second in the 800-meter run (2:20.50) and Ashley Talken finished third in the pole vault (9 feet, 6 inches).
Hersey finished with 18 points, thanks to a third-place performance from Venus Jones in the shot put (35 feet, 6 inches). The Buffalo Grove girls ended the meet with 17 points, led by Nya Carr, who finished second in the 55-meter dash (7.47) and Becca Rabs, who finished third in the 400-meter run (1:02.43).
For Rolling Meadows, Gaby Sanchez finished fifth in the 3,200-meter run (11:40.62) and Jordanne Wynter finished sixth in the 55-meter dash (7.62) to score three points for the Mustangs.