CSL Championships
RESULTS: VARSITY | JUNIOR VARSITY | SOPHOMORE | FRESHMEN
DEERFIELD WINS FIRST CSL NORTH CHAMPIONSHIP IN OVER A DECADE! SWEEPS ALL FOUR LEVELS, SEVEN RUNNER NAMED ALL-CONFERENCE
The wait is over! The Deerfield Warriors finally won their first CSL North Championship in 11 years, ending Highland Park’s streak of four straight.
Last year, Deerfield stunned the conference by unexpectedly winning the conference meet. But it was too little too late as duel meet losses prevented them from finishing on the top of the standings. It was an amazing day a year ago, but a very big piece was missing, and the team set a 365-day course to correct it.
Fast forward to Saturday. Glenbrook South was the site of this year’s conference championships. Deerfield showed up as the undefeated favorites to take home the CSL North crown, and they achieved even more than that.
In all honesty, the varsity race was somewhat of a struggle for the Deerfield runners. They got out in their normal positions, but most of them fell a bit back from that. Junior Josh Puyear (4th, 15:59) has been battling a long illness and was unable to hang with the guys in the front. Senior Ben Kraemer (5th, 16:01) was a little off his game as well. Sophomore Cole Bernstein (3rd, 15:50) ran a fine race and was the team’s top runner for the first time, but even he was five seconds shy of his personal best. Sophomores Ryan Bernstein (9th, 16:33) and Eric Lakemaker (12th, 16:44) and junior Ben Zamler (14th, 16:46) all finished short of their personal bests too. Sophomore Lucas Moskovitz was the only one who had a great day running 16:26 for 8th place overall.
Meanwhile, Highland Park and Maine West ran their best races of the season and significantly narrowed the gap between them and Deerfield. But cross country isn’t won and lost in a day. The Warriors were proud to have worked their way ahead of the rest of the conference by so much, that they could afford sub-par races and still win the conference championship by a significant margin. It’s a true testament to their work ethic over months and years that led to this point.
According to records dating back to 1987, as far as the available records go, this was the first time all seven Deerfield varsity runners earned All-Conference honors. It takes finishing the top 14 to be All-Conference, so Deerfield runners took half the spots in a conference of six teams. An amazing accomplishment.
After ending Highland Park’s four year streak of conference titles, Deerfield looks to start their own streak. This was a very young varsity seven, possibly Deerfield’s youngest ever. One senior, two juniors, and four sophomores combine for just eleven cross country seasons between the seven of them.
Additionally, if you combine the CSL North and CSL South scores into one race since they run together anyway, Deerfield would place third, which is an amazing feat among the state-ranked teams in the CSL South. #6 New Trier wins over #9 Maine South, and then Deerfield edges out #15 Glenbrook South for third place.
The varsity results alone would have been enough for all 84 Warriors to leave the meet with smiles, but the lower-levels added to the team pride.
Deerfield completely dominated the JV race with a perfect score of 15 points! Jonah Kaplan (1st, 17:01)was the JV individual champion, and he was followed into the chute by teammates AJ Osborn (2nd, 17:08), Zack Greco (3rd, 17:08), and Jason Dahlberg (4th, 17:19). As the fifth runner, Mac Cooley (5th, 17:26) used every ounce of energy to edge out a Maine West runner by 0.04 seconds to secure the perfect score! Deerfield earned ten of the top 14 ribbons, which might be a record. Behind the first five, Grant Fisher (8th, 17:32), Micah Plofsky (9th, 17:34), Elai Spector (10th, 17:42), Joe Ariano (11th (17:44), and Asher Kriegel (14th, 18:19)collected those ribbons. In many ways, the JV race is a true testament to the health of a program because it shows who works hard without a lot of spotlight on them. These JV runners work as hard as varsity runners.
Based on times, if the JV race and varsity races were combined, Deerfield’s JV team would take fourth place in the conference. That means that Deerfield’s JV team would beat three of the six varsity teams. Furthermore, stats show that if Deerfield’s 8th through 14th JV runners, who don’t count for scoring in the JV race because only the first seven count, were considered a JV “B” team, they ran fast enough to beat all the other CSL North JV “A” teams. That’s a serious display of depth by the Deerfield program.
Deerfield truly impressed in the sophomore race. With four sophomores pulled up to varsity, the sophomore squad relied on their depth, and they still came out with a victory. Alex Luo (1st, 16:46) was shot out of a cannon at the start and built himself a huge early lead. He held on to become the sophomore champion. Jonah Satyr (5th, 17:35), Carson Amstutz (7th, 18:08), Ethan Blacher (9th, 18:19), and Jack Gordon (12th, 18:28) who are really the 6th through 10th runners in the class, stepped into scoring positions and earned the victory. All five won top 14 ribbons.
The freshmen, having been crushed by Highland Park’s freshmen in an early September race, were looking to get them back. In typical Deerfield fashion, they won with depth. Deerfield had no runners in the top four, but they had 11 runners in the top 20. Lucas Goldenberg (5th, 11:32) had a breakthrough race, finishing as Deerfield’s top freshman for the first time. Deerfield had seven of the top 14 ribbon winners. After Goldenberg, the ribbon winners were Zach Garland (8th 11:41), TJ Mangurten (9th, 11:44), Owen Lacy (10th, 12:07), Adam Khan (12th, 12:08), Jeremy Lamm (13th, 12:10), and Aden Siegel (14th, 12:11).
At the end of the day, Deerfield walked away with the CSL North Championship trophy, the maximum number of All-Conference Medals, all three lower level championships, 52% of the lower-level ribbons, and 45 new personal best times. The team went into the meet with the mindset of “maximizing Deerfield success,” and that they did. It was an absolutely historic day for the Deerfield boys cross country program.
Next, the lower levels finish out their season at the Prospect Invite on Tuesday while the varsity runners gear up for the IHSA State Series beginning at the Lake Forest Regional on Saturday.
