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CSL South Quad #2 2024

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DEERFIELD CELEBRATES SENIOR DAY WITH WINS OVER NEW TRIER, EVANSTON, AND GLENBROOK SOUTH ON HOME COURSE

It rained all day long, which was perfect for Deefield’s senior day at CSL South Quad #2. Deerfield thrives in difficult conditions, and that was on display as Deerfield came out on top of New Trier, Evanston, and Glenbrook South.

In the varsity race, Deerfield’s top eight runners were doing a pseudo-workout within the race with precise targeted one mile and two mile splits slower than race pace, and then letting it rip in the final mile. They formed nice packs and hit their prescribed pace. Then they put the hurt on their much larger conference foes, although though New Trier was sitting out their top runners. Jamie Chandler’s prescribed pace still put him out front right away, and he led from wire to wire, but not without dropping a blazing 4:54 in the final mile. The next pack was Nick Dowell, Ben Freedman, and Andrew Calderon. This pack broke up in the final mile with Dowell throwing down a 4:59 mile and battling with Evanston’s best runner who had beaten him by a lot in their previous two meetings this season. Ultimately, Dowell fell short just two seconds short in 16:10, but it was a huge boost to the team. Calderon and Freedman finished five seconds back in 16:15 and 16:16. One of the races of the day came from Danny Kriegel who came from the next pack back all the way up to Freedman and Calderon in the final mile to give Deerfield a very strong fifth and final scorer in seventh. Deerfield put three more runners in the top 14 with the junior trio of Sam Chaban, Scott Harvey, and Hugo Albrecht-Buehler finishing in the low 16:30s. Jay Noren reached a new milestone finishing in 22nd place in 16:55, his first time breaking the 17-minute barrier. Further back in the varsity race, Seth Frank and Jonathan Heid ran massive PRs of 55 and 85 seconds, respectively.

At the end of the race, the scores were not close. Deerfield, the smallest school in the CSL, had topped the three largest schools in the CSL, all with enrollments of between two and three times larger than Deerfield’s. Of course, New Trier ran a JV team, but they still could not get anywhere close to Deerfield. And Deerfield defeated Evanston and Glenbrook South’s top runners by huge margins.

The inspiring action didn’t stop there. In the sophomore race, the Deerfield sophomores collected three wins as well. New Trier and Glenbrook South runners tried to stay with Logan Luo and Ethan Reich for the first half of the race, but the Deerfield runners put gigantic gaps on them in the second half. Luo won in 16:28 and Reich got second in 16:49. Third place was back in 17:11. Eli Duncan survived a scare in pre-race warmups to finish as Deerfield’s third runner in 17:33. Lucas Bryan broke a milestone as Deerfield's fourth in 17:52 for eighth place, his first race under 18 minutes. Jasper Fine had his best day of the season by hanging on to Bryan’s back for nearly the entire race and running a 27-second personal best of 18:04 for ninth. With five runners in the top nine, nobody was close to Deerfield as the sophomores also secured victories over all three big-school opponents.

The Deerfield freshmen had a great day as well with eight of the eleven runners setting new two-mile PRs. Kevin Hou was the team’s first finisher in seventh place in 11:44. Bear Navickas, Ben Borucki, Jacob Buglio, and Lev Shulman were the other Deerfield scorers. The Warrior freshmen beat Glenbrook South but the talent disparity was too much to hang with New Trier and Evanston. However, that seems to be the trend for Deerfield. Over months and years, the talent disparity tends to get washed away with hard work, and these freshmen are on the same track as their sophomore and varsity teammates who were undefeated on the day.

CSL South Quad #2 wrapped up the mid-season CSL South meets for Deerfield. CSL South Quad #3 next week is Deerfield’s bye week, and then all teams will meet again in Deerfield High School’s back yard for the CSL Championships on October 19th.