Deerfield Opener 2023
DEERFIELD DEFENDS HOME TURF WITH SEASON-OPENING WINS OVER MATHER WARREN AND ZION-BENTON
The Warriors started 2023 with a bang! After a long, hard summer of high mileage, Deerfield put their fitness on display at the Deerfield Opener. The Warriors defeated Mather, Warren, and Zion-Benton on both the varsity and frosh/soph levels, and it wasn’t close.
Zion-Benton took an early lead but got reeled in by Deerfield’s pack before the one-mile mark. At that point, the front of the race included a lot of Deerfield red plus Mather’s Mohammed Abdullahi. Then Eric Hogenkamp made a move and broke it open. The Deerfield pack split apart, and Hogenkamp, Dylan Cohen, and Abdullahi were running in a pack of three at the front. Dane Brown, Jon Wool, and Jamie Chandler were strung out just behind. Cohen ultimately took over the lead until the last mile where Abdullahi pulled ahead for good. Cohen finished in second in 15:29 and Hogenkamp third in 15:40. Along with the 2-3 finish from Cohen and Hogenkamp, Deerfield took the next four places with Brown in fourth in 15:52, then Wool in fifth in 15:56, Chandler in sixth in 16:14, and Nick Dowell had a nice race sitting and kicking on Mather’s second runner to finish seventh in 16:17. Deerfield had two more top ten finishers as Matt Solovy and Andrew Firestone outkicked Mather’s third runner for ninth and tenth, both in 16:25. Danny Kriegel and Ben Freedman finished twelfth and thirteenth in 16:48 and 16:53 putting ten Warriors in the top thirteen for total Deerfield domination.
The frosh/soph race was even more dominating. The Warrior’s youngsters took the top eleven spots! Scott Harvey led from wire to wire, finishing the two-mile race in 10:46 and without any other runner in sight. Will Lambert, who has been hitting his stride in a major way recently, was second for the Warriors in 11:23. For most of the race, Lambert was packed up with eventual third and fourth placers Sam Chaban and Hugo Albrecht-Buehler. Then Charlie Marks, Noelan Tossing, Jon Weissmueller, Andrew Calderon, and Logan Luo all finished within ten seconds of each other for fifth through ninth. Jay Noren and Alex McManamna finished tenth and eleventh before the first runner from any other team. Also exciting was Aurin Dasgupta’s 13:05 finish for 15th place, a 54-second PR, and the result of an amazing summer of training
Besides the dominating win, this meet saw 14 Deerfield runners cross their first high school finish line. A runner’s first race can be daunting given the intense atmosphere and the pressure of competitive high school cross country, so finishing your first race is a special moment. With their first races under their belts, now the work begins to make the next races even better.
