Week 8 Information: Meet Thursday, Celebrations, Food Drive

Good evening everyone,

Here is a quick round-up of important information for the week:

Wheaton Warrenville South Meet on Thursday at 5:00

• Format: Open meet for all with FAT timing

• 3 buses leave West at 4:00 (Nugent, Frazier, Mastandrea)

• Schedule: Field events start at 5:00, Exhibition 55 starts at 5:15, Running events start at 5:45

• Order of running events: Exhibition 55, 4 x 800, 3200, High Hurdles, 55, 800, 4 x 200, 400, 1600, 200, 4 x 400

• Exhibition 55 has unlimited entries, 55 has 5 entries per level (JV/V), all other events have unlimited entries

• NO spikes are allowed on this track

• It’s a 177.8 meter track (9 laps for the 1600)

• No gum, food, or drink in fieldhouse

• No tape in the fieldhouse - Chalk only

• $5.00 admission for adults, $3.00 admission for students

Celebrations from Last Week

Last week was an incredible week between our home meet on Wednesday and Friday's "Coach Di Invitational" at Batavia. Between those two meets, we celebrated over 80 personal records (PR's) at today's team meeting!

We also had the opportunity to celebrate the following medalists at Batavia's meet:

• Frankie Iarrobino: 3rd Place in the 55 low hurdles with a time of 8.2

• Mason Ellens: 3rd Place in the 200 with a PR of 23.24

• Anthony Nitti: 2nd Place in the 800 with a season best of 2:01.77

• 2nd place in the 4x200: Mason Ellens, Julius Ellens, Rayan Mohammad, Evan Knight - 1:35.90

• 2nd place in the 4x800: Owen Reifel, Julian Hernandez, Matthew Verbiscer, and Charlie Halden - 8:34.58

• Luke Benson: 2nd Place in long jump with a distance of 20’ 3.5”

• Luke Benson: 1st Place in triple jump with a PR distance of 43’ 7.5”

• Overall, we placed 3rd as a team behind Batavia (last year's state champs) and Minooka (another excellent program)

Finally, we also got to celebrate the following weekly awards:

• Runner of the week: Graham Faris for being an underclassman running in a varsity race and running a monster PR

• Field athlete of the week: Luke Benson for getting 2nd in long jump, 1st in triple jump, running two great relay legs, and getting a huge PR in his 4x4 split

• Captain's Award: Matthew Verbiscer - for being there for every runner and cheering on every teammate that he possibly could on Wednesday

• Fire in the eyes: Jacob Blew for a monster PR in his 4x4 with fire in his eyes and always working hard

• Fire in the eyes #2: Mateo Guzman for flying in his race and showing the true fire in his eyes

• Awesome Award: Jack Ryan for an incredible 2-ft PR in shot put

• Awesome Award #2: Patrick Hibbard for running a PR in the mile on Wednesday with a hammer of a finish in the 4x4 and showing up to Saturday's meet simply to cheer on his teammates.

Congrats, everyone! And thank you, captains, for coming up with those well-deserved awards. Food Drive Continues this Week

Coaches and volunteers are going to drive all donated food here at West to the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry on Monday of next week. Therefore, our donation window has been extended. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far -- we have a really nice collection! If you would still like to donate to the food pantry, please consider bringing non-perishable food items to school throughout the rest of this week. Do your best to utilize paper bags with handles (paper bags from Trader Joe's or Mariano's are great examples), and consider bringing the following top-needs items: cooking oil, canned chili/pasta/sloppy joes, brown or flavored rice, jarred pasta sauce / boxed pasta, ramen noodles, pinto beans (dried or canned), oatmeal, cookies, liquid hand soap, and boxed potatoes. Thank you again to Heidi Verbiscer and our team moms for getting this organized. That's it for now! We continue to strive for improvement, celebrate the journey (with the ups and downs that come with it), and dream big. Thank you for continuing to support your athletes with what they do. As always, let me know if you have any thoughts or questions. All the best, Coach Voland