BELLEVILLE – The Alton boys track team accomplished many of their goals while finishing 11th in the Norm Armstrong Invitational meet on Saturday at Belleville West’s Bob Goalby Field, scoring 31 points. Edwardsville won the meet with 61 points, three better than runner-up Homewood-Floosmoor, who had 58.
Going in, the Redbirds decided to focus on the individual events while keeping two regulars out of their line up. The team ran well, with many improved times.
“Well, with what we came here to do today, we’re accomplishing those goals,” Alton head coach Jeff White said in an interview during the meet. “We did decide to hold a couple guys out. We felt it was better in the long term: we didn’t want to push them. Even though this is a big meet, we’d love to be out there and load up our relays. But we think it was good to have a couple of guys go on and sit this meet out for the long term of the season, So we came here kind of more focused on individual events, and we’re doing pretty well.”
One of the highlights was middle distance runner Cassius Havis finishing third in the 800 meters with a time of 1:59.11, behind race winner Andrew O’Keefe of Granite City, who ran 1:54.97.
“We’re always happy when Cassius races,” White said. “He’s a pretty special runner for us. Unfortunately, he had a bad start to that race, but we think his conditioning is there, and his 800 meter time is going to drop quite a bit. We think he’s pretty strong, and he’s going to keep getting better in that race as we go on, and he keeps getting adjusted to running outdoors.”
Sprinter Deonte McGoy was another standout for the Redbirds, finishing second at 10.61 seconds to Plainfield North’s Marcellus Moore, who ran a new meet record of 10.33 seconds, the third-best time in the nation this year.
“Obviously, that’s a pretty amazing time to be running on in early April,” White said. “so we’re very pleased with that. That’s a fast time.”
White enjoys coming to the annual meet, which he feels is getting a taste of what the state meet will bring in Charleston this coming May.
“One thing that’s really cool about the Belleville West Invitational is some of the Chicago schools that come down,” White said. “We get to see Marcellus Moore, and Homewood-Flossmoor as well. And it’s really nice to kind of get a preview of what state’s going to look like in Charleston in May. But obviously, Marcellus Moore is a pretty good runner, and it’s exciting to watch him run. I was really happy with how McGoy attacked that race against him. Obviously, he’s going to be a tough guy to beat, but I’ve got to give credit to Deonte for running his hardest in there. Deonte had a time that most
meets, he would win easily. But at the same time, it’s good for him to that experience racing somebody like Moore. Obviously, we believe that Deonte is one of the best runners in the state, so we’re happy to kind of get a little preview there what will be at state.”
After the first month of the season, White feels that the Redbirds are off on the right foot.
“We’re off to a good start,” White said. “We had a really good indoor season, we were really fast, so the challenge for us right now is making sure we’re not having our good speed too much early on, that we kind of wind down from indoor season a little bit and start to build toward outdoor again.”
In addition to his performance in the 100 meters, McGoy finished third in the 200 meters with a time of 21.68 seconds. In field events. Ju’Qui’ Womack placed third in the triple jump with a distance of 43 feet even.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
