St. Charles North caps off historic Kane County Meet with first team title after holding off West Aurora

ST. CHARLES — Kevin Harrington has known that his St. Charles North team had been good whenever it came to the Kane County Meet.

And heading into the 106th running of the county meet, he expected a similar result from his young team. A top-half finish, but not enough for a win.

Yet by the end of the meet, Harrington was focused in on the 4x400-meter relay, hoping that the North Stars could hold its five-point lead over defending meet champion West Aurora in the final race.

“I was just sitting over by the merge line with the official and all I could do was watch,” Harrington said. “He was trying to tell me stories and I was just lasered in.”

And in the end, the North Stars defied their coach’s expectations, as they finished with 112 points, securing a four-point victory for the team’s first team title in the county meet.

“We just had a lot of kids that did a lot of things that caused us to score and double score,” Harrington said. “They just showed up and ran like crazy. The team as a whole stepped up. And event after event, it added up to be enough. And it ended up being a really fun meet.”

The North Stars only had two victories. Sophomore Sam Hill won the 3,200-meter run in 9:24.05 and senior Bobby Guetthoff pulled off the win in the pole vault after clearing 4.47 meters.

Besides that, a majority of their points came from the team’s ability to put two athletes in the top eight in their events.

“I did some pre scoring, and we weren’t even close to the win,” Harrington said. “I thought we were going to be a bit far back, relatively speaking. But as the meet went on, we kept having great results. It wasn’t dominant, but it was a win by 1,000 bites.”

St. Charles North’s victory wasn’t the only thing historic about the meet. Five meet records were broken during the meet, the most in a single Kane County Meet since 1977, when six records were broken.

West Aurora ended up finishing the meet with 108 points to take second. Despite not being able to defend the team title, Blackhawks coach Cortney Lamb said that his guys put it all out there.

“The kids were ready, and we really set the tone early and showed that we got a shot at this,” Lamb said. “The other guys got excited and got it rolling a bit. We came up a little short, which is OK. But I think we’re in a really good spot moving forward.”

The Blackhawks finished the night with five victories, including two new meet records. Senior Azuriah Sylvester had two of those victories, including the long jump. His jump of 7.13 meters broke the meet record, which had stood since 1964 and was the longest standing record in the entire meet.

“That was really nice, I won’t lie,” Sylvester said. “When I heard the record and saw I was close in my first jump, that definitely became the goal to beat it. To break a record that stood for 61 years, that’s just crazy.”

Sylvester then went on to defend his title in the 110 hurdles, running a 14.95 for the win. Senior Dionte Shaw also added two wins in the shot put (17.51 meters) and the discus (51.76 meters).

“(Sylvester) ran in four different events and he excelled in all of them,” Lamb said. “He’s just one of those guys that we can count on every night, along with Shaw and Sere (Iranloye). That core group is just incredible.”

The Blackhawks’ second meet record came not long after, this time on the track. The Blackhawks’ 4x800 team kicked off the track events with a blistering time of 7:53.73, breaking the meet record and putting them with the fourth-fastest time in the state.

“Our distance coach has been telling me all week that they were going to put that group together,” Lamb said. “And I don’t think either one of us expected them to pull that out”

Kaneland rounded out the top three of the team standings with 103 points, the most points scored by a third-place team in meet history.

“To get top three in Kane County, especially being one of the smaller schools in the County, is such a huge accomplishment,” Kaneland coach Andy Drendel said. “I’m just ecstatic right now. A lot of things came together for us in the meet.”

The Knights had two wins, with senior Freddy Hassan winning the high jump with a leap of 1.98 meters. Kaneland’s 4x200 team also took home first and a new meet record after finishing the event in 1:27.85, which is the fifth-fastest time in the state.

“That was a bit unexpected,” Drendel said about the 4x200 win. “We knew we were capable of doing it, we just hadn’t run that team before. Our two seniors (Dylan Sanagustin and Alex Moos) have been absolute workhorses in that event, and Luke Gadomski and Benjamin Karl really wanted to get the job done for those two guys and it payed off.”

Batavia took home four victories to take fourth place with 92 points. Sophomore Eddie Polaski won the 800 in 1:57.60 and senior Thomas Woodard took the 400 after crossing the line in 48.56.

Dundee-Crown (fifth, 77.5) had three wins, all coming from Oreoluwa Sobodu. The senior won both the 100 (10.69) and 200 (21.98), and also anchored the 4x100 relay to a meet-record 41.85, breaking the record that Sobodu and the Chargers set last season.

“That was the first time that we ran that team this year, so I’m just happy that we broke 42 with this team,” Sobudu said. “It really shows that that wasn’t a one-time thing for us. We’re going to do the same thing every single year.”

St. Charles East (sixth, 49.5 points) rounded out the evening with another record-breaking performance. The Saints got their only win of the meet in the 4x400, running a record-breaking 3:20.96, marking the third-fastest time in the state in the event.