LZ Girls Track Team Runs All the Way to Victory

The Lake Zurich High School girls track team ran to their second consecutive Lake County Invitational victory on April 28. The team actually won just one event, but they finished high enough in the standings in other events to best second-place Waukegan, scoring a total of 74.5 points.

Senior Marissa Wagner, one of the team’s star performers, and who is headed for Colorado State in the fall, was victorious in the 400-meter dash for the sole Lake Zurich win. But she also garnered three other medals to help put her team over the top. Wagner finished fifth and fourth respectively in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash, and also helped her team place second in the 400 relay, along with teammates Kelly Doheny, Tegan Hough and Lindsey Moritz.

Moritz was also a big factor in her team’s Invitational crown, placing second to Wagner in the 400 dash, and third in the 200. She was also on the 1600 relay squad that finished second, joining teammates Doheny, Madeline Jordan and Emily Trittschuh.

In one of the most nail-biting finishes, senior Amy Polhemus was edged at the line by Zion-Benton’s Maxey Chelsea in the 300 hurdles.

Polhemus gained some measure of satisfaction last Saturday when she set a school record in the same event. While she finished second again, this time to Evanston junior Margaret Bamgbose, her 45.51 time is nonetheless a new school best.

Meanwhile, the boys track team participated in the fourth annual Bears Invitational on April 21, and senior Alex Brend set a new school record in the 1600. His time of 4:18.8 is also among the 10 best in Illinois and 25 best in the country.

“Going after the record was one of my goals this year, so I’m really glad that I got it,” said Brend, who is heading to Purdue this fall.

“He really wanted to go after the school record in that race,” said coach Chad Beaver.

Beaver’s team finished second overall to Class 3A champs Lake Park. Jacob Brinlee, the Bears football team’s running back extraordinaire, won the 100 and 400 dashes, and took second in the 200. Brend and teammate Pat Juras finished first and second in the 1600 meters as well as the 600. The Bears also took first in the 400 relay with a 43.50 time, while placing second in the 800 with a 1:32.10 time.

Other noteworthy performances: Ryan Moncrieff finished second in the 3200 meters (9:26.0); Andrew Lulis took second in the pole vault and fourth in the 300 hurdles; Erik Porter placed second in the high jump (6-1); Jon Ramirez was third in the 800 (2:03.5); and Mark Tabaka, another Bears football player, finished fourth in the shot put.

The Bears Invitational has become one of the top outdoor events in the state. This was the first year that 12 school teams participated, doubling the number from a year ago.

The Lake Zurich Bears girls soccer team is jelling at just the right time, as they get ready to play in the state tournament next week. The team scored a 1-0 victory over St. Charles East, and a 1-1 tie against Wheaton Warrenville South in the Naperville Invitational on April 28th.

Sophomore standout Vanessa Abad and senior Gina McCoy have been doing much of the heavy lifting as of late, as they scored all of their team’s goals during the invite. McCoy scored the goal—her third of the season-- against the Fighting Saints for the win, while Abad nabbed her eighth goal of the season in a 1-1 draw against the Tigers.

A demonstration of how these two players work so well together is that each was credited with an assist for the other’s goal.

“Gina and Vanessa really do work very well together, and it’s that consistency that we have been looking for all season,” said Bears coach Meghan Kolze.

With the win and draw during the invitation and a 3-0 victory earlier that week against Wheaton Warrenville, Lake Zurich notched their first unbeaten week of the season. This past Wednesday, they dueled arch-rival Stevenson to a 0-0 tie, and now stand at 7-6-3 overall, and are still contending for the North Suburban Conference title at 2-1-2.

“We are starting to play well and I’m seeing more of the consistency we have been looking for,” said Kolze, “and it’s coming at the right time of the year.”

A big game coming up for the Bears is against conference foes Zion-Benton on May 9. That contest will go a long way towards sorting out the conference standings. Lake Zurich still has their eye on the NSC title game. They wrap up the season with a non-conference game against Grant on May 11th, and the state tournament commences with a game against Dundee-Crown in the Barrington Regional on May 13.

The Bears baseball team is also showing signs of coming together. After getting mugged by Grant 12-3 last Monday, which was the first sub-par outing of the season by starting pitcher Mike Irgang, the team was shut out 8-0 by conference rivals Warren the next day, managing a total of just four hits.

But hold on; it does get better. On Wednesday, they came back and won 5-2 in the second of the back-to-back away-home games against the Blue Devils. And on Thursday, they shellacked Carmel, 13-6. In that contest, Zach Till doubled and Parker Asmann tripled, while Mike Schnur homered.

Unfortunately, that two-game winning streak was dashed on Saturday, when the Bears lost 9-6 t0 Lake Forest. Jeremy Reusch and Ben Gullo doubled for Lake Zurich, and Mark Dorfman homered, as Schnur absorbed the loss.

The teams traded four-run fifth innings, with the Scouts heading into the sixth with a 7-6 edge. However, Lake Forest tacked on two more runs in the sixth to put the game away. The Bears are now 7-14 on the season, but there's still plenty of road to go, especially with all of the make-up games to play due to the rash of recent weather-related postponements.