Bryant blasts out of blocks to spark Tigers' run

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Chester Bryant spent the week leading up to the Southwest Prairie Conference boys track and field meet working out getting out of the blocks quicker than his usual lickety-split quick.

Then, he put on a new white-hot racing suit and blasted past his Plainfield North teammate and friend Dominique Ware to win the 100 meters.

Bryant also ran legs on North's first-place finishing 4x100 and 4x200 relay teams as the Tigers celebrated the return of all-stater Jake Arnold by winning their first boys conference track meet on Thursday at Plainfield South.

North won seven events, including three relays, and scored 125 points. Plainfield South placed second with 78, followed by Romeoville 77, Plainfield Central 74, Oswego East 71, Oswego 70, Minooka 48 and Morris 15.

"Yeah, we practice all the time with our starts," Bryant said. "And we race a lot of time in practice. So, all this week, Coach Wheeler, our start coach -- he's also a hurdle coach -- he's been working with us on our starts. So, we just tried to get a good start and hopefully get the win.

"We go back-and-forth. It's usually whoever gets out of the blocks first between me and Dominique. Today, I got out of the blocks and I got the best of him. . Coach has been telling me to come out with my head down and to run hard. That's what I've been trying to do."

Bryant finished with a FAT time of 10.98 in the 100. Ware was clocked in 11.01. He later added a second-place finish in the 200 (22.46). He also was a part of North's 4-by-1 and 4-by-2 relay teams.

Bryant, Ware, Arnold and Dion Strong were clocked in 42.30 in the 400 relay and 1:29.10 in the 800 relay.

Arnold, a senior who had run six races since the Lockport Indoor meet on March 15, provided a shot in the arm that helped put North over the top. He returned from an injury and ran the anchor leg on all three of the Tigers' winning relay teams in a performance that called to mind run to a ninth-place finish in the Class AA state meet in the 400 meters a year ago.

He teamed with Strong, George Frimpong and Kevin Capodice for a time of 3:26.46 in the 1600 relay. When Strong handed Arnold the baton, he trailed Plainfield South's Joey Gutierrez by several paces.

Not for long.

"My teammates did all the work," Arnold said. "I wanted to finish it off for them."

"We have graduated anybody yet and we've already won a conference title," North coach Tony Holler said. "This is a dream come true for kids. Maybe five years from now conference championships won't mean as much if we've run five in a row or something like that. No, I didn't really say that, did I?

"But that's the way we think. That's the way you've got to think if you're going to be a great program. And we hope this is the first of 10 more in the next 10 years. But right now, this is huge for our kids because we got third last year and we watched that great Plainfield Central team. We watched the great kids from Romeoville. And we weren't there yet.

"So, that was THE goal this year, that we were going to win conference. It's a great accomplishment for our kids."

North also picked up victories from Strong in the long jump (21-11), Capodice in the 800 (2:01.82) and Andrew Karas in the 3200 (9:54.16).

"I feels pretty good," Long said. "But I knew it was going to happen. I've jumped against all these guys before. I had good confidence. Yeah, I still had to do it. But that was easy. I practice pretty hard. I jump at least three times a week."

South was paced by sophomore distance ace Jake Ferris. He won the 1600 in 4:36.39 after earlier placing second in the 3200 in 9:56.75. The Cougars also picked up a victory from their 4x800 relay team in the first event on the track. Gutierrez, John Magee, Juliano Lodi and Rudy Bores were clocked in 8:24.58.

Ferris staved off Oswego's Nick Wiseman in a bang-bang finish to take the metric mile.

"Yeah, it was crazy," Ferris said. "I didn't think he was going to stay with me. I thought I had him. But he came out of nowhere. It was a great race. I couldn't see him in my blind side, but when we were right at the finish, he tried to get me. I gave it a little extra and I got him back.

"It's really tough running those two races. After I finished that two-mile, I thought I was not going to do a great mile. But I came back and I finished great. Just working these hard workouts that coach puts us in gets us ready for this stuff, where it's photo finish, and you have that last kick. So, it's great."

Romeoville's Kentaro Pierce won the 200 (21.94). Plainfield Central's Mark Baron won the 400 (50.20) and high jump (6-2) and Josh Winder won the pole vault (15-0). Winder shattered the 2007 conference record of 14-3 set by his old teammate, Justin Small.

"Yeah, it was another one of those sweet, windy days," Winder said. "You want to think there is no wind. But at the same time, you've got to adjust to it, and there is wind. If everybody vaulted like there was no wind, there would be a lot of people getting hurt. You've just got to drop down -- just like I did at Lockport -- and go with what you can.

"I forgot they switched the whole conference thing up. So, I was assuming the record was by my brother, around 16 or something. But it feels pretty to have it, I guess."

Jake Winder was a state pole vault champion during his high school heyday at Plainfield South. He now vaults for North Central College.

Minooka's James Hoffman finished third in the 110 hurdles (15.39) and second in the 300 hurdles (40.85). Brandon Johnson placed second in the discus (135-1) and fifth in the shot put (49-4¾).