Brandon Adams put the finishing touches on a great meet with a thrilling come from behind victory for Minooka
Illinois relay teams have gone from silent to simmering to finally busting open the flood gates. The proverbial "Big weekend" produced some great overall track and field times, but the relay times would see its biggest drop on Monday night at the 15th Annual DGS Mustang Relays.
Key Boys Highlights:
4x800: As expected the leaderboard was rewrote by Downers Grove North and a bevy of teams who smashed their way to season bests. The #1 event in all of Illinois saw fast 1:54-1:55 opening legs by several units. The following was sea-saw action in which the Trojans were able to hold on against Naperville (Neuqua Valley) 7:55.79-7:57.74. Both times are of course #1 and #2 in the state. With the arrival of many different track sizes (from unconventional flat, banked 160m to 300m), the performances here could be of a greater value than the raw numbers alone. Glenbrook North and Glenbard West also dipped under 8:00 (7:58.79, 7:59.84). A total of nine teams surpassed the previous state leader Danville.
4x200: It never fails and the wage betters probably made off like a bandit in determining how many mishaps with bad transitions, dropped batons, lane violations, and of course crashes. There were six sections and although none of them were flawless, the crash derby really took notice with section #6. Yorkville, Lane Tech, and several other squads went down or were re-routed. Ultimately, it was section #4 Neuqua Valley who came away with the victory in IL#2 1:32.06. Coming into the season the Wildcats unit was not one that was billed as a squad to watch. Maybe that changes now. The "championship" section 6 winner Minooka placed second overall in 1:32.88- good for the 3rd best time in Illinois.
4x400: The showstopper was just that in its tension building. A surprisingly fast time from section #3 Glenbrook North who clocked a short lived IL #3 3:27.75. Fortunately the big players in sections 5 and 6 with Lockport and the thriller that Brandon Adams of Minooka produced. The Indians trailed Batavia and Proviso East entering the final leg. It appeared as though Batavia was going to take the sweepstakes. But the ace Adams would not let down his team as he roared on the final leg and overtook both teams, and with tremendous emotion with his mates won convincingly in a new state best 3:24.62. Adams split was a reported 48.3. Batavia and Proviso East did not go home completely unhappy. They both logged season bests 3:25.20 and 3:26.11- IL #2 and #3.