Each division had its shining moments during a day that displayed excellent track and field action. Bishop McNamara High School Irish Relays Saturday, May 8 divided track programs into two divisions, Olympic and Classic, and each class excelled.

Bradley-Bourbonnais won both the girls' and boys' Olympic Division titles as Manteno collected the Classic Division on the boys' side and Central captured the girls' title.

The BBCHS boys' squad won the Olympic Division with 85 points, bettering Watseka's 67, Kankakee's 62, Bishop McNamara's 53 and Momence's 39. The field events helped the Boilers distance themselves as Brandon Williams was first in the shot put at 51-4 and Dalopo Adubifa was second at 50-10. McNamara's Chris Vaccaro placed third at 48-2 and took first in the discus after a toss of 145-8 in an event that had Williams in fourth at 142-10.

Brandon Southard placed second in the high jump at 5-10 for the Boilermakers while Miguel Melendez helped BBCHS by taking third at 5-8. Mitch Thompson won the triple jump event with a leap of 41-6 ahead of Jared Randle's 40-4 1/2 for Kankakee. Thompson and Randle were joined by Kankakee's Edgar Townsend for the 110 high hurdles event. A dash to the finish line went to Townsend in 15.08 beating Randle's 15.34 and the third place time of 15.36 from Thompson. Jeff Henchel took fourth in the event at 16.22.

Manteno's Colleen McQueen begins to pull away from the field in the 100-meter dash.
Herald photo by Brendan Olszewski

A 1,600-meter relay time of 3:33.84 put BBCHS in first and their 8:56.85 in the 3,200 relay was second to McNamara's top time of 8:39. The Irish also won the sprint medley in 3:52.44, bettering Bradley-Bourbonnais' 3:54.35 and Kankakee's 4:06.51. The Irish showed their distance strength once again by taking first and second place in the 1,600-meter run where Micah Dorn timed in with a new sophomore meet record of 4:35.9. McNamara's Nate Bell was second at 4:44.5 with BBCHS' Verdi in third at 5:03.97 and Ramirez at 5:04.96. Kankakee had D'Andre Dowdy placing second in the 100-meter dash in 11.36 ahead of Marcus McCloud's 11.38 for BBCHS.

BBCHS used a mixture of second and third place finishes for their winning team total on the girls' side. Leah Mayo, Amber Barnlund and Danielle Boudreau each had first place individual finishes to get BBCHS 17 points better than second place Normal U-High. McNamara was third with 57 points with Herscher in fourth (52), Momence in fifth (30) and Kankakee in sixth (13). Mayo blazed through the 100-meter dash with a 12.4 while Barnlund was tops in the shot put at 32-8. Boudreau was the best at discus at 101-1 beating Andrea Kerouac's effort of 95 1/2 for McNamara and Barnlund's third place 94-11. Taylor Bennett displayed her mastery of the 1,600 with a winning time of 5:12.55, well ahead of the 5:36.35 from Alison Gremar of Bradley-Bourbonnais and the 5:47.06 from Jenna Kick of Bishop McNamara. Bennett also was the anchor for the 3,200-meter relay team that set a new meet record at 10:26.39 ahead of the 10:39.54 from BBCHS.

The Manteno boys' Classic Division win came behind the team gathering 78 points while Central-Iroquois West was second with 54 and Wilmington and St. Anne tied for third with 51 points each. A 6-0 high jump effort by Ryan Jones meant a first place for Manteno with Josh Henderson being awarded second at 6-0. Jones placed third in the shot put at 36-10 1/2 ahead of teammate Jason McDaniel's fifth place 34-9 1/2. Jordan Graves helped as well in the field events taking fourth in the triple jump at 21-1 1/2 and Matt Simeur was fourth in the long jump at 17-9. Tony Malito was fifth in the 1,600-meter run at 5:09.5.

Manteno's relay teams gathered big points by taking the shuttle hurdles in 59.22, the 800 at 1:34.7 and the sprint medley relay at 4:10.95. The 400 relay team was second at 45.81, the 3,200 relay was second after a 9:28.01 and third in the 1,600 at 3:52.28. Mike Kizior took fifth in the 100-meter dash at 11.9 and second in the high hurdles at 17.63 with Jones in fourth at 18.75. The fifth place finish for the Manteno girls was backed by the first place effort of Colleen McQueen in the 100-meter dash and the long jump. A time of 12.7 topped the field and her 17-6 long jump distance was the best of the day. The sprint medley relay team placed first at 4:56.43 with the 800 relay placing fourth in 1:59.97. Amanda Rubin paced herself to a second place 1,600-meter time of 6:16.5.