2023 Mascoutah Military Classic Recap
Olney Tiger Track has had a pretty successful run over the past 5 years… likely the best span we’ve had since the 1980s. In that time, we’ve won some area invites, been Conference Champs 3 out of 4 years, and had numerous All-South and All-Conference athletes. But following last season, the determination was made that it’s time for us to take another step. Most people realize that Olney is in a tough spot in the post-season since bumping up a class 10 years ago…being 2A means running into schools that oftentimes have twice the enrollment we do. And in track and field, that isn’t something you can just gameplan around. For us, that next step was simple, but not easy: be more competitive at Sectionals and get more guys through to State. We knew we were going to have a special group of athletes, but we also knew that on it’s own wasn’t going to be enough. So our approach involved two big points of emphasis:
Get as innovative as we are capable of in terms of training
Seek out the best competition we could realistically expose our athletes to.
We spent all summer, fall, and winter maximizing what time we have with our athletes, so many of whom are 3 or even 4 sport athletes, and we did what we could to take full advantage of what we have at Olney. As far as competition goes, we traveled to Mt. Zion twice, Eastern Illinois, and U of I this winter, the most indoor meets we’ve ever had on our schedule, then followed it up with an outdoor calendar that includes trips to Greenville, Mascoutah, Mattoon, Newton, and Charleston (we have since added Edwardsville). If you’re looking for competition, I don’t believe Olney, IL can do much better than that without making 4 hour bus trips every weekend. Our kids are going to see amazing facilities, outstanding competition, and get accurately measured every weekend (all of our invites are being timed on FAT for the first time ever).
Due to Greenville being cancelled (weather), this past Friday was really our kickoff to this upgraded schedule… it did not disappoint, and neither did our kids. Mascoutah’s facility was jaw-dropping, the weather & competition were incredible, and our kids certainly rose to the occasion: the final tally included 17 new personal bests, 1 new school record (with a couple near misses), and an overall team finish of 8th. That’s against a fantastic roster of 20 teams, with some legit heavy-hitters: perennial powerhouses Edwardsville & Cahokia, as well as Triad, Mascoutah, and Mt. Vernon - all of which are getting attention in the 2A rankings. Bottom line, our kids had a great day.
Ayden Cothern: Olney’s New Fastest Man
It’s official, Ayden Cothern is the fastest Olney Tiger ever. Following the incredible indoor season and a dominating first outdoor meet, we felt pretty strongly that a decades-old record was about to fall. Tom Murphy originally set the record (10.70) in 1964 - it was converted from a 100 yard dash time - and then that record was tied by Brian Hearring in 2000. We recently converted the record to reflect Fully Automatic Timing, which set the mark at 10.94 (I’ve went into more detail about the how and the why behind this conversion process on Facebook… you can find that here). Friday at Mascoutah looked to be a great opportunity to eclipse that mark with warm weather and outstanding competition. In the end, 5 athletes broke the 11 second barrier, which is incredible. The fastest of them, Nathan Hippard of Mascoutah, is now #1 in 2A after his own record breaking performance Friday - 10.61. Ayden’s 10.83 (!) was itself good for a lot of things: a 2nd place finish in an incredible field, a new school record, and the #4 time in IL Class 2A.
I’ve documented here and elsewhere what would have to be considered by our standards as a meteoric rise for AC over the past 18 months. In November of 2022, I didn’t expect that Ayden would even be out for track, and at that point he hadn’t really done a ton to stand out athletically. But as of today, he has clearly established himself as one of the greatest athletes in the history of Olney. Maybe most importantly, Ayden has done nothing but work hard and remain humble in that time span, which is a big reason why he is pretty much universally loved by coaches and teammates. Congrats to Ayden… but he isn’t done yet.
Hallam PRs, Just Misses on a few All-Time Jumps
Rex Hallam has already firmly established himself as the best Long Jumper I’ve ever had, and likely the best Olney has seen in decades. And, at just barely 16 years of age, the sophomore has shown he can handle a big stage (Rex finished 3rd at IL Top Times this March). After a solid performance in not so great conditions at last week’s Olney Invite and a near miss on a huge jump earlier that week, Rex was looking to bounce back in a big way at Mascoutah, and he definitely did just that. Rex’s 2nd jump went for 21’7.5, good for 3rd place. That jump also is an outdoor personal record (he jumped 21’10 at IL Top Times), #10 in Class 2A, and tops among sophomores in 2A.
A scratch is a scratch, and scratches don’t count, but… Rex had some absolutely stunning scratches at the Military Classic - one of them pictured above. Both of those scratches, especially the 2nd one, were hairline. And the consensus around the pit was had he not fouled on either of those jumps, we’d have our first 22+ foot jumper in a very long time. I’ve said time and again that I’m not in the business of making predictions, but I’ve got a strong premonition that Rex is due to do something spectacular before the book is closed on this season. Btw, the above picture caught some eyes on social media. People tend to react that way when they see Rex takeoff in person, too.
Heat and Wind can’t keep Hough from another Personal Best
There’s a reason top tier college programs will often divide their teams up and send them to different parts of the country depending on the time of year. Put simply, good conditions for some events oftentimes don’t equal good conditions for others. A hotter day typically means a faster, bouncier track, but can make distance runners miserable. Within reason, wind is capable of benefitting sprinters or field events (depending on the direction), but there’s no escaping it when you are running full circle.
Holden Hough got blasted by both heat and wind on Friday, but the senior showed serious resilience. His 4:36.01, good for 5th, was 2 seconds better than last weeks performance in more favorable conditions (again, for distance; not so much everyone else). It puts him at RCHS #4, roughly half a second faster than Tiger Great Braden Nicholson who finished 3rd in the 2A 3200 (2019). You can see by the look on Holden’s face in the above picture, that race was no cake walk. But he gutted it out, and he’s primed for a big close to the season, starting with Saturday at the Eastern Relays in Louisville (Holden will be heading there while we take primarily sprinters and jumpers to Edwardsville). He’ll be competing in his first outdoor 3200 of the season.
Jones Continues to Zero In on the 300H
One of the big storylines of this season is the return of Saul Jones. I believe he has the potential to be one of the top hurdlers in 2A, but the pandemic has wreaked more havoc on his career than most, and he’s never had a truly normal season - in fact he didn’t have a junior season at all. As a result, his senior campaign resembles a second freshman season of sorts. One of the impacts he is dealing with is the fact that prior to last week, he hasn’t ever run in what could ultimately be his best race: the 300 Hurdles. That race didn’t go exactly as planned… Saul mis-stepped on the first hurdle, went down, barrel rolled, and then got up and finished the race. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt, and he came back and won the race, but his time was seriously impacted on an already severely windy day.
Saul’s first reasonably clean run on Friday was more along the lines of what we were expecting. He finished 6th overall in a talented field, and turned in a 42.92 (running into a headwind). That puts him at about 1.5 seconds off recent graduate and state qualifier Chase Travis’s RCHS Era #1 mark of 41.24 from last year. Saul will line up in the 300s again this Saturday at Edwardsville. Look for him to continue to make big improvements as we start to move into championship season over the next few weeks.
Sprint Relays Edge Closer to History
Last week was not what we were hoping for in the sprint relays, which we’ve got pretty high expectations for this season. Not so great weather and almost universally poor handoffs left us waiting until this week to find out what we really had in the 4x1 and 4x2. The aforementioned wind was likely to play a role, but temps and competition - we were in the fast heat for both relays - provided a great opportunity for our guys if we executed well. In the end, both groups showed they belonged amongst the big boys.
Our 4x1 (Jones, Cothern, Hallam, & Cothern) looked great through two exchanges, but Ayden got out a little too fast on Rex, and had to throw on the brakes. He made up for it with an outstanding last leg, and the group PR’d by two tenths on their way to a 6th place finish. Their time of 44.23 puts them just 3 tenths of a second off the school record, set in 2013 (Washburn, Waggoner, Hahn, & Lathrop). A better 3rd exchange may not have been enough on that day to take down the record, but it’s enough to further suggest that a clean race in the right conditions might.
The cats on our 4x2 team (Brown, Cothern, Hallam, & Cothern) know they’re getting within shouting distance of one of the more impressive records in our history… before it was broken by that same group of Washburn, Waggoner, Hahn, and Lathrop in 2013, the previous record had sat there for 45 years. AC wasn’t feeling well coming into Friday, and the heat only compounded that. After his record-breaking performance in the 100m, we thought he might not have anything left in the tank… but he virtually peeled himself off the Mascoutah turf and hopped back in the saddle for the 4x2 a short time later. Even with our anchor hurting and significant headwind building on the straightway, our guys ran extremely well, nailing their handoffs, finishing 5th, and turning in a 1:32.21. Good for #3 in school history (the current record sits at 1:31.27), and #12 in Class 2A. It’s also just a few tenths off the State Qualifying Standard.
*For fun, I did some checking to see what that record setting group was running in early April of 2013, and they were turning in times in the high 1:33s... We’ll see what these guys can do the 2nd half of the season.
Ian Pianfetti: One of our Fastest Freshmen Ever
AC wasn’t the only Tiger to make some history in the 100m on Friday. As previously mentioned, this was a big time meet. Meets like this can be a huge step up for young sprinters - kids just mature a ton between 7th grade and their sophomore year. It’s easy to get buried and/or out-classed in an event like the 100m at 14 or 15 years of age. But Ian Pianfetti continues to show that he can hold his own. His 11.57 earned him 13th place (for those who may think that doesn’t sound impressive at a meet like this, trust me, for a freshman, it definitely is), and is in the same conversation with Gavin Dorn’s Conference Champion sprint in 2018 (11.36) for our fastest freshman 100m of the last decade. Ian’s been battling injury and adversity this season… again, super proud of him.
Winkler & Wease: Great Performances “Under the Radar”
Senior Zach Wease and Junior Ian Winkler both turned in “under the radar” performances on Friday at Mascoutah… the kind of efforts that may not show up in the main headlines, but are nonetheless impressive, morale-building, and help make our track program better.
It’s easy to forget that Ian still just has a handful of track meets under his belt, but he continues to build his resume as one of the better jumpers I’ve had in my tenure (this is year #14 for me). He’s already the 4th best Triple Jumper we’ve had since in that span, less than 6 inches from #3 (Sutton Dunn) and just under 1 foot from #1 (Jordan Duenas) - Mike Rodgers is #1 All-Time with an incredible 45’5 back in 1992. As mentioned previously, Ian’s already taking on more duties as one of our primary High Jumpers. At Mascoutah, Ian PR’d in the HJ at 5’7, and came extremely close to going even higher than that. He then turned around and scored for us in the Triple Jump at 39’8. Not his best jump, but he’s adjusting well to putting a lot of jumps in at a single meet - something we’ll definitely need him to do at Conference in a few weeks.
Zach Wease, who recently signed to play football at North Central College, is a unique athlete. He’s got a rare combination of size, strength, and speed that made him a problem for opposing teams regardless of where we put him on the football field (he played everything from QB to Defensive end). At the Military Classic, he was very impressive in a couple different ways… In one event (the shot), he’s almost brand new, and yet has already worked his way into our #1 position. He PR’d with a toss of 42’2.75, our best since 2021. He then turned around and ran his first competitive 400 of the season, picking up right where he left off last spring. He set a new personal best of 56.41 on a hot windy day. Maybe the biggest surprise of the meet, and Zach is going to score points for us at the Conference meet in a multitude of ways.
Other Notables
Caleb Rudolphi continues to show himself to be one of our most improved and toughest cats. He set a new best in the 110 Hurdles, followed up last week’s 300 Hurdle effort with another great one, and then came back and volunteered himself to fill a spot on our 4x4 team (something you don’t see every day). Caleb is just a tremendous competitor.
Speaking of our 4x4, they put together maybe the most fun 3:47 I’ve ever seen. Saul Jones ran a fantastic 53 second opening leg, Dawson Brown ran his fastest split of the year (56.00), and two other cats (Kirby and Rudolphi) stepped up to the plate, filled in, and competed their tails off when it would have been easy to cash it in at the end of the day. This group has a special competitive spirit, and I love getting to be their coach.
Our ultimate goal is always simply to beat ourselves (in a good way). We can’t control anyone else but us (and sometimes conditions or health can even make that difficult). But when we set close to 20 new personal bests, we mark that up as an outstanding day, regardless of team scores or school records. Become a better version of you… that’s all we want.
Full results for the meet can be found here.
The full gallery for the meet can be found here. Coach Wheeler and the fellas got ahold of the camera at one point (and probably got a little carried away). But that’s the kind of stuff these guys will carry with them for the rest of their lives, and part of what makes our sport great.
We took small crew to Newton’s JV Meet on Tuesday, and the kids competed well. Handful of PRs at that meet as well. Full results are here.
At the time of this writing, Mattoon’s Invite has already been cancelled (bummer - the competition would’ve been great, and we head there for sectionals in under a month). On to Edwardsville!