2025 Championship Season Recap

The Post Season is upon us. After a week off for Prom, our Varsity guys have been on a whirlwind tour, and it’s a been wildly successful one. So successful in such a short span that it’s been difficult to keep up with. As we move from Championship season into the post-season, I wanted to at least give a quick wrap up, although there’s no way to truly do justice to everything our guys have accomplished the past few weeks. We head into Sectionals seeded at #1 in 9 different events, with another 4 athletes seeded 2nd, and a total of 17 athletes/relays who have already hit State Qualifying Marks this season. Perhaps most importantly, everything they have done, they have done with class. They care about each other, they represent our school with integrity, and they have folks from around the area rooting for them. I couldn’t be more proud of not just what they have done, but how they’ve done it.

Highlights

Team

Starting with the Conference Meet on May 7th, the Tigers had 3 meets in 10 days, and travelled all over the southern half of the state, and our guys wowed people everywhere they went. At the LIC meet in Robinson, we racked up 195 points, putting almost 100 points between us and 2nd place and winning 10 of 18 events. We finished 1st and 2nd in 5 of those events, and totaled 15 all-conference performances (1st or 2nd place) and medaled in 5 more events (3rd place finishes). I’m not sure there’s been a more dominating win at the Little Illini Conference meet since we joined in 2013, and it was probably one of the more dominant Conference performances in Illinois this year.

Just 4 days later, we made our first ever trip to Collinsville, which has been described by some as perhaps the best late-season meet in Illinois. 37 teams, and over 20 of them are 3A (the biggest schools in Illinois)… we’re a smaller 2A school (the bigger schools in 2A usually run around 1200 kids). We did more than hold our own, finishing 4th (the scoreboard actually had us in first pretty deep into the 2nd half of the meet). Just to put into perspective how impressive that was, the average enrollment of the other 9 teams in the top 10 was 1,588. We currently have around 700 students in the school.

We finished up our regular season at St. Teresa Invitational. Despite being predominantly made up of 1A schools, many of those are Decatur area schools with tremendous athletes, and this meet has already become known for how fast it is. Officially this is supposed to be a meet w/out team scores, but it was scored anyway. We won the meet beating out Tolono Unity - significant because Tolono is a 2A school and one of the teams who will be in the running with us for the Sectional Title on Wednesday (they are actually hosting this year).

Notably, we did not go into either Collinsville or St. T with team scores on our minds. Collinsville was just a few days after Conference and we were mostly trying to give our guys some limited action against top notch competition. At St. T., the idea was to give our guys a last shot at getting tuned up without sacrificing recovery before Wednesday’s Sectional. For the most part we kept our guys down to no more than 3 events… especially on the track. Everywhere our guys go, though, they compete. And it was fun to watch.

Throws

Casey Thomann continues to edge closer to history in the shot. Over the past month he hasn’t turned in a performance less than 50 feet, and his best throw of the month has him within a foot of the school record (a heave of 53’9.25” at the Collinsville Invite. In that span, he’s won the Conference Title in the shot, finished 7th at Collinsville (billed as the top throwers meet in the state), established himself as one the top 7-8 throwers in Class 2A. He heads into our Sectional as one of those 9 Tigers with a #1 seed. Discus has been more of a battle for him this season, but he’s still been within 6 inches of state qualifying. Like we often say with our throwers and horizontal jumpers… it only takes one.

Our young throwers have worked hard and gotten some great experience this spring, led by Taylor Levitt. He hasn’t been able to eclipse his best of 37’10 back on 4/28, but he’s thrown at some big meets and is driven to get better. I believe this kid has a bright future in the ring.

Distance

Our young freshman group started off Championship season with a dominating performance at the LIC meet. Following a span where Olney Distance as a whole hasn’t been as big of a presence, this year’s group let everyone know they were going to be a factor for the next several years. Our freshmen swept the individual distance gold medals (Butler in the 800, Berger in the 1600 & 3200), and picked up another two medals (Butler 2nd in the 1600, Dicks 3rd in the 3200). They followed that up with 3 top 10 finishes at the Collinsville Invite, topped by Quaid Berger’s outdoor best and 1st place finish in the 3200m (Judah Dicks took 3rd in the same event, and Tristin Butler finished 9th in the 1600m). The next Friday, Judah and Tristin took the the night off to make sure they were rested for Sectionals, while Berger and Livingston got a tune-up in the 1600m. Both ran extremely well - Berger finished 5th in a very competitive field, and Landon ran a new best of 4:50. As freshmen, these 4 guys have just about blown every expectation we might have had out of the water. They have flat out had an incredible season and they are only going to get better.

Jumps

The Jumps Crew has spent the past few weeks being consistently great, and in a couple instances doing things that are just hard to believe. In a group of jumpers that had 4 state medals and a state championship coming into the season, Gavin Root has quietly been fantastic. He earned all-conference honors at the LIC Meet, cleared a new best of 6’4 to finish 3rd at Collinsville, and then took home his first ever invite win at St. Teresa this past Friday Night. In that span he never went out any lower than 6’3.5”. He’s done all this while tearing it up on the baseball field this spring. By the way, with all the talk about the two amazing Long Jumpers we have (and they are amazing), it may go unnoticed that we now have two High Jumpers going 6’4 or higher. Don’t take that for granted… it’s amazing.

Those other two guys (Cothern and Hallam), took first in the HJ and LJ at Conference, and then followed that up with what had to be one of the craziest displays of athleticism by two Tigers in any sport… ever. Gavyn Cothern broke our school record in the LJ last year to win the state championship with a jump of 22’11.25. That record had stood for almost 60 years before he broke it, but he and his teammate, Rex Hallam, have spent the entire season pushing each other to greater and greater performances, and it has been awe-inspiring to watch. Rex broke the new school record with a jump of 23’0.75” back at the Edwardsville Invite, and after a low key one/two finish at the LIC meet, they both went off. Gavyn hit just over 23 feet on his 3rd jump, and then followed that with a monster 23’8.25 effort. He had the school record again for all of a few minutes before Rex finally connected on a jump we thought might be coming (he had struggled to find the board prior to his last jump). He hit 23’10”. Unbelievably, that gave them first and 2nd place at the meet, made them #2 and #4 in all of Illinois regardless of class, and put them both in the Top 90 in the United States. Stuff like that just isn’t supposed to happen in a little farm town like Olney. St. Teresa saw them both have solid but not spectacular nights in the jumps, but they were also busy on the track with our phenomenal relays. Both of these guys are big time performers, and the big time is upon us. Can’t wait to see what they do.

Our next great pole vaulter, Maverik Cordell, picked up a 3rd place medal at Conference and a top 10 finish at Collinsville, but he has been in a holding pattern the past few weeks as he works towards a big breakthrough (12’0). He’s been slowed down a bit by a tweaked quad muscle, but he’s rested up and we’re hopeful that breakthrough happens this week at Sectionals. I keep saying that I know that big breakthrough is just around the corner for him, because it’s true. His talent and work ethic mean it’s not a matter of if but when.

And last but not least, the Triple Jump has been eventful: Our newest triple jumper, Reid Brown took 6th at Conference, and Ryan Kirby got some much deserved success at LIC, becoming the conference champion in the Triple Jump. I can’t not smile whenever I see good things happen for Ryno. He’s one of the best teammates we have in a group full of great ones. Mr. Hallam also got back in the act for the first time since 2023, clearing State Qualifying this past Friday Night at St. T. That’s something to keep an eye on here in the post-season.

Sprints

It’s almost hard to know where to start in this section. As a coach who makes speed the foundation of his program, I’ve had the time of my life this spring. At the LIC meet, we took the 1 and 2 spots in both the 100m and the 200m for the 3rd time since 2013, with Felipe Goncalves becoming the LIC’s fastest man (the 9th time a Tiger has won that title in the past 12 seasons) and Ian Pianfetti winning the 200m in with a spectacular new best of 22.41 (he also PR’d with an 11.02 in the 100m, and has since run in the mid 22s twice - a phenomenal jump for Ian from last season). Those two are seeded 1/2 in both the 100 and the 200 at our Sectional, a first for us. At Collinsville, Felipe then broke a school record he’s been chasing all season, running a 50.31 400m (he turned around and broke it again in 50.22 at St. T). Aiden Germak has also been doing work in the 400, and is now #1 on our F/S leaderboard since 2010 with a time of 53.18. A key X-Factor for us who I’ve already mentioned, Ryan Kirby, also medaled in the 300 Hurdles at Conference, setting a new best of 43.01. He’s very close to becoming just the 3rd Tiger to break 43 seconds for us since 2010.

In the relays, it’s been surreal. After changeup in the 4x1 at conference (that we weren’t quite sure about how it would pan out), our crew (Pianfetti, Hallam, Cothern, Goncalves) went off at Conference running a 42.14 even though they were a full 2.5 seconds ahead of the field and a second faster than the School Record coming into this year. Perhaps even more nuts, this past Friday night they dropped another third of a second and went 41.80 at St. T, good for #2 in Class 2A. If you want some perspective on just how crazy that time is: That’s the 5th fastest time from the past 10 years in 2A… There have been 7 seasons in that span in which 41.80 would have been the fastest in 2A. Currently we are just .06 behind #1 Mascoutah. In the 4x2, we’ve only had one varsity run this season back at Edwardsville on a day that didn’t produce a bunch of fast times. We ran great (1:30.00 was over a second faster than our school record), but we knew we had a lot more in the tank. After a DQ at Conference, we took another run at it Friday at St. T., with one important wrinkle: we subbed Ryan Kirby in for Felipe Goncalves. In the hopes we could save Felipe for the 400 at Sectionals (he’s currently seeded #1), we wanted to see if we could hang with the team currently seeded #1 in our Sectional, Tolono Unity (they were there on Friday Night). Our guys answered with a 1:28.81, smashing the school record and a few tenths faster than Tolono that night. Both of these relays are in contention for big things to finish up the season. Not to be forgotten, our 4x4, typically not a signature event for us in the recent past, went out at the LIC meet and ran the fastest time in my tenure as head coach, and the fastest time we’ve run since 2012, 3:36… with all the things going on in our other two sprint relays, Kirby, Edel, Germak, and Beard showed just how much depth we have in this group.

Up Next

The Tigers head to Tolono Unity aiming for the first sectional title in program history. This is no small task… the competition will be phenomenal as always. But the Tigers have shown they belong, and this is the most competitive group we’ve had in decades. It’s going to be fun watching them go after such an enormous milestone, and I’m proud of them already.