The Cherokee boys track team had four athletes competing in the National Championship meet in Boston, Thursday - Sunday, March 7th - 10th: Ben Realley in the freshman 800, Bobby Poplau in the Championship 800, Nick Kuenkel in the Championship 2 Mile and the 4x Mile Relay team of Bobby Poplau, Liam Tindall, Ben Realley & Nick Kuenkel. The first 3 days were at the Reggie Lewis Center which has a good track but was too small a venue for the event, making it uncomfortable and hard to watch what was going on. Sunday, the meet moved to the very impressive Track at New Balance, a beautiful facility that was able to handle the crowd in attendance.
4xMile
The 4x mile was first on Thursday and things did not start off well for the group. After a solid lead-off by Bobby Poplau to put the team in 5th (with roughly a 4:16 mile leg), Liam Tindal - still struggling to return to form after illness - ran the second leg and despite not being at his best, ran competitively and handed off in 6th to freshman, Ben Realley. By this point in the race, things were spread out and somewhat confusing. Ben, who has also struggled to return to form after being sick, seemed a little “out of it” as he was being passed by runners from other teams.
With a lap to go, it appeared that he would run a time well off his best when, without warning, the officials rushed Nick onto the track a lap early. As a result, Nick had to run 9 laps to make up for the 7 laps run by Ben. It was weird, confusing, and really no longer feeling like a race but just a survival exercise. To his credit, Nick maintained a decent steady pace despite the extra lap but it was a far cry from what we felt we were capable of running and we finished 12th overall.
Freshman 800
The next morning, Ben Realley was up again in the freshman 800. Although it was a slow pace through the 400, Ben was caught in the back of the pack when things got going, effectively taking him out of the race for first. He closed well and finished 5th (5th in the nation ain’t bad!), but it was clear that he was still not back to his form from earlier in the season. When 100% healthy, Ben is capable of racing with any freshman in the country!
Championship 2 Mile
On Saturday, Nick Kuenkel, ran in the 5th of 7 heats of the 2-mile championship. The race went out very aggressively and was very physical with a lot of contact and not much chance to find a rhythm early on. When things finally settled in, Nick found himself separated from the leaders and running with the chase pack, who were not so much chasing as just maintaining an even pace.
He closed well over the last lap to run his second fastest time (his 9:12.26 for 2 Miles converting to 9:09.06 for 3200), but he is capable of running faster. Still, this is the first year that Nick has trained and raced consistently through the winter and it bodes well for his spring season where he will be chasing both Shawn Wilson's 1600-meter school record of 4:11.69 and Marc Pelerin’s 3200 school record of 9:01.89!
Championship 800
The highlight of the trip came on Sunday when the meet moved from the Track at New Balance and Bobby Poplau took the track for the Championship 800. He was in heat 8 of 10, a heat in which just about the entire field came in with personal bests between 1:53.0 and 1:53.9. On paper, it was anybody’s race. When the runners reached the cut-in mark after the second turn of the first lap, Bobby slid into 3rd place. Coming on to the homestretch of lap 2, he moved past the second runner and closed on the leader. As the leader began to slow the pace, Bobby went by him to take the lead with one lap to go. He ran a strong last lap but could not shake the previous leader who stayed with him to the final stretch.
From there, it was a battle to the finish which Bobby narrowly lost by 4 100th of a second. While he would love to have won the heat, he knew he gave it his best and, in doing so, came away with not only a new PR but a new school record of 1:52.74, finally surpassing the oldest track record on the Cherokee books, the 1:53.14 run by Dave Sitzer when he finished 3rd at the New Jersey Meet of Champions in 2000. To his credit, Dave was thrilled to hear of the new record and spoke with Bobby by phone that day to congratulate him on his accomplishment!
Bobby has made great progress this year and he will battle with Nick Kuenkel to take down the 1600 school record this spring while dropping even more time off of his own school record in the 800!
It was a very good winter season for the team and we are all excited to move into the spring season and see what this group can accomplish next!
Updated School Record Lists:
800
3200
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