Prospect Invite
DEERFIELD WINS PROSPECT INVITE CHAMPIONSHIP IN IMPRESSIVE DISPLAY OF DEPTH, FISHER WINS INDIVIDUAL TITLE
On Tuesday the DFDC traveled to Prospect High School to compete at the Prospect Invite. The Prospect Invite awards trophies for the top 35 finishers in each race, so it’s a great chance to earn some hardware. This meet mostly serves as a final race for runners who will not be racing in the IHSA State Series, so it’s a competition of depth. It just so happens that depth is a major strength of Deerfield’s, and it showed.
There was a battle at the front of the varsity race . Senior Grant Fisher was neck and neck with a Prospect runner. In the final quarter mile, Fisher pulled ahead for good and won the individual title in a personal best time of 16:56—his first time under the 17-minute barrier.
The Deerfield seniors put on a show in this race. After Fisher, the next three runners were seniors Jason Dahlberg (3rd, 17:02), Mac Cooley (5th, 17:25), and Micah Plofsky (7th, 17:29). Junior AJ Osborn (12th, 17:37) rounded out the scoring for the victorious Warriors who won by a large margin with 28 points over Glenbrook South’s 67 and Prospect’s 92. After winning last year, Deerfield extended their winning streak at this meet to two years in a row.
Deerfield runners took 12 of the 35 varsity tropies. Other trophy winners were Joe Ariano (15th, 17:45), Zack Greco (16th, 17:47), Asher Kriegel (18th, 17:49), TJ Mangurten (25th, 18:00), Ethan Friedman (26th, 18:04), and Brendan Beamer (29th, 18:14). Junior Charlie Hart (33rd, 18:18) ran in his first race of the season after injury and earned himself Deerfield’s final individual trophy. That is a product of hard work cross training all season, pure mental toughness, and avoiding excuses.
In the frosh/soph race, Deerfield collected eight individual trophies on their way to a second place finish. Trophy winners in the 2.5-mile race were Jonah Satyr (4th, 14:50), Ethan Blacher (11th, 15:08), Carson Amstutz (15th, 15:18), Lucas Goldenberg (16th, 15:19), Jack Gordon (18th, 15:22), Avi Wolkenberg (19th, 15:25), Drew Spiegel (21st, 15:30), and Owen Lacy (24th, 15:32).
This performance was a great way to close out the 2019 cross country season for most of the DFDC. Over the last two months everybody learned that their potential as a runner is beyond where they thought it could be two months ago. This kind of depth and determination will make Deerfield a dangerous team this track & field season and next cross country season.
On the way home from the meet, the team took its annual detour to Steak ‘n’ Shake to celebrate a job well done and a fantastic cross country season.
