2025 Apollo+ Invite
The MTZ Apollo+ has shaped up the past several years to be the meet when our whole team starts to come together. Winter athletes start to come back into the fold, and you start to get an idea of what your team is going to look like. Lots of pieces to still move around on the board (especially with the ability in this group), but things are taking shape. And this year was a little more eventful because of the return of Rex Hallam - his first time competing on a track since the IHSA state meet in 2023 (where he finished 6th in the Long Jump). It was a non-scoring meet (meaning no team scores), but we didn’t need scoring to make the day entertaining: Saturday may have just been one of the most impressive days this program has ever had - yes, even more so than last weekend. Tons of all-time great performances and personal bests, not to mention tremendous character from our kids. This was also the first meet we have ever entered as a state-ranked team (Milesplit had us at number 10 this week), and I don’t think there’s any questioning that our guys lived up to it. Scroll down for highlights, rankings, records, splits, photos, and full results.
Highlights
Flying Tigers
For the past couple seasons, the jumps have been where Olney has earned the most attention. In 2023 Cothern and Hallam both medaled at state (HJ & LJ, respectively). Last year, Cothern medaled in two events (HJ and LJ) and Winkler medaled in one (TJ). This season could be the biggest yet for our Flying Tigers. Cothern is back for his junior year, Hallam has returned from the knee injury that sidelined him in 2024, and we have some guys that are already emerging as Tigers to watch out for… I’ll start with them.
After a great first meet at MTZ (where he cleared 6'1), Gavin Root had high hopes last weekend at SIU... Mt. Zion currently doesn't have a surface that allows High Jumpers to wear track shoes/spikes - so he was geared up for a big performance in spikes at SIU. But it just wasn't his day... a long bus ride and an even longer wait (we left at 11:30 and he didn't jump until almost 7:30) - and just the unpredictable/high-pressure nature of the event - probably all contributed to Gavin having a disappointing day (he wound up only clearing 5'5"). Gavin showed his bounce back ability this weekend, though, clearing 6'2 (in tennis shoes) and winning the high jump. That's a new personal best (all-conditions), good for #15 in Class 2A (#3 sophomore), and puts him within an inch of #2 for us all-time (indoors). Gavin is also a guy I can trust - when I needed a guy to help keep splits yesterday, he jumped right in without hesitation. He works his tail off, and he's one of the most improved athletes in the school. Sky's the limit for this kid. Another young high jumper, the talented Mattey Sanders, moved into the #4 spot on our all-time F/S list (indoors). He cleared 5’7 this weekend. Add those two in with Gavyn Cothern, who took the week off from HJ, and this is easily the most talented High Jump group we have ever had.
Maverik Cordell struggled his first meet out (at Mt. Zion). Not much of a shocker, considering we don't have anywhere for him to PV indoors over the winter. It's also my opinion that vaulters like Mav have to make pretty big adjustments to their own athleticism and maturity, and that doesn't even take into account that they have to figure out new poles as they grow and progress. And no matter how much I encouraged him going into the meet to be patient with himself, I knew he wouldn't be happy with the result. Watching him respond the past couple weeks has been pretty awesome: he's bounced back with all-conditions personal bests at EIU last weekend and at Mt. Zion this weekend. At roughly 11'6, that makes him the #9 soph in Class 2A, and he's just a quarter inch behind Levi Seitzinger for the #2 spot all-time (all-classes) for us indoors. Another guy who puts in a ton of extra time... Mav is easy to root for.
Ryan Kirby, another Tiger I would put on the short list of most improved athletes from 2023 to 2024, also set a new best for the 2nd straight week. Ryno got an award this past football season for his commitment - he works as hard as anyone in the weight room and speed workouts. It’s shown up in his testing numbers this winter… he’s running faster than he ever has, and his vertical leap numbers are in our all-time top 10. For that reason, and because triple jump is an event that has a big learning curve, I expected to see Ryan show legit improvement this spring, and he’s already on his way. Ryan picked up right where he left off last year (always a good sign)… he’s now within a few inches of the 40 foot barrier, something only 7 Tigers have ever done in my 15 year tenure. Regrettably I didn’t manage to get a picture of Ryan jumping this weekend, but he impressed me enough to make him our GRIT award winner for the week (which I could probably do almost every week).
Lastly, I’ll talk about what was a pretty momentous day of long jump as a whole. Remarkably, Rex Hallam and Gavyn Cothern have never jumped at a meet for us together. Despite Cothern being a phenomenal Long Jumper in Middle School, we had him concentrate pretty exclusively on High Jump his freshman year (because we knew we had Rex, and our only legit high jumper - Drew Blank - had graduated the year before). It was in the plans for 2024 before Rex had his season wiped out by injury, so this has been a long time coming, and it did not disappoint. Gavyn turned in the first 23-foot long jump in the history of the school (indoor or out), and despite his nerves, Rex hopped right back in the saddle like he hadn’t missed a day. His jump of 21’8.75” is barely an inch less than his all-time indoor best (from his 3rd place finish at Top Times back in 2023). As of this writing we have the #2 and #5 Long Jumpers in Class 2A. Pretty unbelievable. And if we don’t already sound spoiled, here’s one more for you: With his jump of 19’7 on Saturday, Xae Owusu-Gyan moved into the #2 spot on our all-time freshman list indoors (behind Cothern), and #3 all-time on the F/S list (behind Cothern and Hallam).
Throws
Casey Thomann continued his return from a late-basketball season ankle injury this past Saturday. We are always focused on being at our best when it matters most, but especially so when an athlete is coming back from being hurt. Having said that, Casey started to look more like his late season self from 2024 - he threw almost 3 feet further on Saturday than he did the prior week. His mark of 49’5.5” bests his own school record (which he set last week). Casey improved so much so consistently throughout the season last year, it’s easy to forget where he started - despite limited practice he’s throwing 4 feet further right now than he did at this time last year. He'll have one more chance to break into the top 12 next weekend and hopefully qualify for Top Times… he’s currently at #14, but only 6 inches out of the 10 spot.
Youngsters Taylor Levitt and Jace Tracy got some more great experience this weekend in their final indoor meet of the season. Neither hit their best marks, but these two are working hard - ups and downs are part of the process. We’re excited about our young throwers and watching them progress throughout the season.
Sprints
Lots to talk about in this section, so we’ll start at the beginning. I’m excited about the first appearance of our new hurdler, Keagan Puckett. Keagan is a Freshman, and a tremendous baseball player. He’s also our first true hurdler since graduating Saul Jones in 2023. We had Chase Travis prior to Saul, and both were state qualifiers, so we have been spoiled in that department in recent years. Keagan hurdled throughout Middle School, but the jump to high school hurdling is a tough one - the height of the short sprint hurdles goes up half a foot, which can be pretty daunting for athletes. Keagan has been hard at work with our resident hurdle expert, Jackie McDonald, and he’s looked great in practice, but taken his time to make sure he’s comfortable and ready to go… things that I think are very important for a young hurdler. His first performance was exactly what I would’ve hoped for him - a relatively clear run other than the final hurdle. His 10.94 was good for 10th place out of 17 competitors.
We had another huge day in the 60m - in fact it was probably our fastest overall day ever. We went 1st and 2nd in the event, which we have never done, and 4 Tigers ran under 7.50 (two under 7.15). After breaking the Freshman 60m record last week with a 7.50, Xae Owusu-gyan was just barely edged out by Gentry Hough this week… Gentry now holds the freshman record at 7.47, while Xae sits at 7.49 (#2 all time). Pretty impressive way for these two to finish up their indoor season in that race - we’ve had a lot of fast guys come through Olney. The previous holder of that freshman record, Ian Pianfetti, continued to impress this Saturday despite being on the road for a college visit for much of the week. He set a new personal best for the 3rd consecutive meet, shaving .02 off of last week for a 7.12 (Ian currently sits at #23 in IL 2A… they take the top 24 in that event). The shocker this week, though, was newcomer Felipe Goncalves. Felipe has impressed from early on and shown consistent improvement every week, but no one (including his coach) saw this weekend’s performance coming. Felipe dropped from 7.39 to 7.14 (!). That takes him from #6 all-time for us to #3. Only Ayden Cothern has run faster in the 60m than these two (an incredible 6.97). They were already the fastest duo I have ever had in this event, but we’re now talking a different level… and our sprint relays (which we emphasize more during outdoor season) are starting to look extremely scary.
In the 200m, we were limited on competitors this week. Ian Pianfetti was another week healthier after being knocked down by the flu in late February, and absolutely dominated the field, winning by almost half a second. He was off his previous best from the week before of 23.15 by 4 tenths, but the lack of competition (and what are possibly some tighter curves at MTZ) undoubtedly had an impact. Ian will get one more crack at the 200m Saturday at U of I. He’ll likely have to tie or break our indoor school record of 23.03 (Gus Lathrop in 2015) to have a shot at making the cut for Top Times. Mason Brown also saw his first action in an indoor open event this weekend. Mason is another much-improved athlete, and he works as hard as anyone… look forward to seeing him progress during outdoor season.
The fastest Freshman 400m runner I have ever had, Carter Seaman, set a new indoor best for himself this weekend, breaking 57 seconds for the first time. He now sits at #4 all-time for us indoors and is running 2 seconds faster than he was at this meet last year. That’s also good for the fastest frosh/soph indoor 400m I’ve ever had. I could easily see him breaking into the 53s before outdoor season ends, something only Gavyn Cothern has done for us since 2021 (Saul Jones was the last to do it before Cothern last season). We’ll likely have to wait until outdoor to see him in action again as he has tennis matches the next few weekends.
Last but not least our relays… We’ll start with the 4x4, who for the second straight week set a new indoor record. This weeks group looked a little different and was anchored by Aiden Germak, who turned in an outstanding sub-55 split in his first ever 4x4 (not shocking considering he had one of our all-time best 4x4 predictors earlier in the week). Edel, Seaman, and Goncalves all ran stellar legs as well (led by Goncalves sub 53), resulting in a 3:40 and a 2nd place finish behind Mt. Zion. Our younger group of Georis, Beard, Dicks, and Lodi also ran great, breaking 4 minutes. Currently, the outdoor 4x4 is the only relay record that hasn’t been broken in my tenure… with this group of guys and a few other possible pieces, I could see that changing in 2025.
4x2 was shaping up to be a exciting event for us on Saturday - despite holding out Rex Hallam and Ian Pianfetti (for different reasons), we still had two extremely strong groups. A varsity group of Goncalves, Germak, Kirby, and Cothern had a shot to do extremely well and possibly win the meet, and our B group, comprised of all newcomers (Owusu-gyan, Hough, Sanders, & Edel) was good enough to run in the fast heat with them. Olney is just flat-out spoiled with fast kids right now. Unfortunately we got off to a rough start.. Felipe leaned forward enough to earn a false start, which means instant disqualification. That’s hard on any kid, let alone a newcomer leading off a relay made up of veterans, but his teammates immediately lifted him up (I saw Cothern give him a hug right after, and I know there were countless others). A bummer for sure, but we’d rather it happen right now than in May. Our youngsters picked up the slack and ran a 1:40.56… good for a 7th place finish out of 17 teams, and also good enough for #6 all-time. Amazingly, that’s over a second faster than the 2020 group of Dorn, Greenwood, Jones, and McDannel - two 100m conference champs in that group!
Distance Crew
It was a big week for our young distance crew… Tristin Butler and Quaid Berger got the opportunity to compete at the New Balance Indoor Nationals… something not many athletes get to do. Both of them ran great and represented Olney extremely well… Quaid won the opening heat of the 1 mile, and he and Tristin both set new bests in all 3 of the races they competed in. The mile is treated as a separate event from the 1600, but Tristin’s 800m time is currently the 7th fastest for a freshman indoors this season in Illinois, and the 2nd fastest indoor 800m we’ve ever had (Shane Newman ran a 2:03 in 2012). Livingston and Dicks were a bit off their pace in the 3200 and 1600 from the prior weekend, but not by much. Landon also moved into our top 5 all-time Frosh-Soph list in the 800m, while moved into the #6 spot. Dicks also has a legit shot at qualifying in the 3200 (Berger is likely a lock) for Top Times, and will get one more crack at it this coming weekend.
Up Next
Indoor Season is already on the downhill slope. We head to U of I for our final non-qualifying event, the Gene Armor Invite. It’s a huge meet, typically with roughly 50 teams from all over the state and every class. The facility is historic and an awesome place to compete for our athletes. It’s also a last chance meet for Top Times hopefuls. The only downside is that entries are extremely limited (we can only enter one athlete per event), and with the group we have that makes things tough. For class 2A, we currently have:
2 top 30 athletes in the 60m
2 top 20 athletes in the 3200m
2 top 15 athletes in the HJ
2 top 5 athletes (!) in the LJ
It’s a good problem to have, but still a problem - thankfully one that becomes less of an issue once outdoor season gets here.
Relay Splits
4x2
Hough - 25.6
Edel - 23.1
Sanders - 26.0
Owusu-gyan - 25.4
4x4 A
Edel - 54.9
Goncalves - 52.9
Seaman - 57.4
Germak - 54.8
4x4 B
Georis - 54.8
Lodi - 63.2
Dicks - 60.5
Beard - 59.21
Event Winners
Ian Pianfetti - 60m & 200m
Gavin Root - HJ
Gavyn Cothern - LJ
New Personal Bests
4x4 - Edel, Goncalves, Seaman, Germak
4x2 - Hough, Sanders, Edel, Owusu-gyan
Hough - 60m
Owusu-gyan - 60m & Long Jump (All-Conditions)
Sanders - HJ (All-Conditions)
Seaman - 400m (Indoors)
Root - HJ (All-Conditions)
Cordell - PV (All-Conditions)
Goncalves - 60m
Pianfetti - 60m
Cothern - LJ (All-Conditions)
Kirby - TJ (All-Conditions)
Thomann - Shot (Indoors)
New Honor Roll Performances (Indoors)
Pianfetti / 60m - #2 All-Time
Goncalves / 60m - #3 All-Time
Hough / 60m - #7 All-Time & #1 Freshman All-Time
Owusu-gyan / 60m - #8 All-Time
Seaman / 400m - #4 All-Time & #1 Frosh-Soph
Livingston / 800m - #7 All-Time
Dicks / 800m - #9 All-Time
4x2 - #6 All-Time
4x4 - New #1 All-Time
Cothern / LJ - Broke His own all-conditions best, setting a new school record
Root / HJ - Broke his previous best, #3 All-Time
Cordell / PV - #3 All-Time
Thomann / Shot - Improved on his Previous Best, which is #1 All-Time Indoors
Kirby / TJ - #4 All-Time