Kevin Salvano’s move in the last mile the difference in winning the individual state championship

By Michael Newman

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Peoria, Ill – There was no shell shocked look on the faces of the Sandburg runners after they finished the 3A state race Saturday afternoon at Detweiller Park. It was a time for joy with the fans that had supported them this season. Three busloads of Sandburg fans made it to the park hoping for what they had seen all season.

The quick start for Sandburg was the difference as they won their program’s first state championship. They have been graced with great individual runners such as state champions Tom Graves and Lukas Verzbicas. This was a team effort for the Eagles as they scored 79 points with three all-state runners.

“This is the only way that I would have felt good and that is the only way they would have felt good in winning this meet,” Sandburg Coach John O’Malley said. “Last year they broke through with the first team trophy in school history and it should have probably been a day to celebrate but it was like a day of mourning. They’ve had expectations that have exceeded those from the outside. It did not matter to them if they were ranked first in the nation. Whatever pressure that had on them was not even close to the pressure that they put on themselves.”

Sandburg was snake bitten for the second year in a row of drawing an inside box to start. Their Box 4 position was not ideal but something that they were prepared for.

“At the Peoria Central Invitational, we asked for an inside box so that we could prepare for this moment,” O’Malley added. “We knew we had to get out fast to get around the first turn. That box kind of complements the personality of this team of pushing it hard at the beginning.”

The Eagles did get out hard. It was maybe too hard as they passed by the 400 at close to 60 seconds.

“I was yelling at them to relax and get into their race,” O’Malley said. He was standing on the inside before the first turn so he could see his team come past. With twins Sean and Chris Torpy leading the pack through a blazing 2:11 first 800, even they knew that was too fast. “I heard the split and I thought wow that is too fast,” Chris Torpy said after the race. “There was nothing that we could do at that point. We just had to go with the flow.”

The pace settled down in the next half mile but was still fast as the lead group went through the first mile in 4:40. Sean Torpy was a part of the group along with Kevin Salvano (Buffalo Grove HS), Matt Pereira and Brian Griffith (Lake Zurich HS), and Vince Zona (Lyons Township HS, LaGrange) in front. Sandburg had 6 runners in the first 11 at the 800. That had spread out by the mile but there was still a presence of blue and gold up front.

The pace slowed in the back triangle. That was the signal for Salvano to take the lead. He opened up a slight gap as he left the triangle and back onto the main portion of the course. By the time that he got to 2 miles, he went past in 9:37 with the group of Pereira, Zona, Griffith, Sean Torpy, Blake Evertsen (Hinsdale Central HS), and Dustin Macuiba (Warren Township HS, Gurnee) two seconds back.

Salvano continued to pull away from the pack in the final mile opening up close to a six second lead on the group. The move that he had made in the triangle was the difference. As he turned into the main straight towards the finish, his eyes were on the finish with the lead.

There was action going on behind him. Charlie Kern Jr. (York HS, Elmhurst) had lagged behind the leaders for most of the race. He was in 12^th with 800 to go when he decided to make his move. He gained eight spots in the next 400 with his eyes on the runners ahead of him. He passed Evertsen and Sean Torpy with just under 200 to go. He turned his sights on Salvano.

The Buffalo Grove senior was alerted to the fact that Kern was coming by the race announcer yelling “Here comes Kern. Here comes Kern.” He looked back three times to see what was happening behind. Salvano made one final burst to get him into the finish line in 14:20. Kern was close behind in 4:22 running his last 800 in a quick 2:09.

“I expected the pace to be about 4:40. When the pace started to lag, I took it and did not look back,” Salvano said. “I was a little nervous at the end. I’ve had problems looking back. I looked back once or twice. This has been a long process to get to this point. I was so happy crossing the line but I have never been so tired after a race.”

“I just tried to maintain my position so that no one got too far ahead of me,” Kern said afterwards. “I was feeling tired at 2 miles but I know I have a pretty good kick at the end. I always can count on that.”

Sean Torpy led the Sandburg team in with 3^rd place finish 3 seconds behind Kern. Evertsen was next in 4^th another second behind.

Sandburg paid for the early pace as they started to drop off just a little at the half way point of the race. Since the fast pace they had set early on had put them in excellent team position, the drop off was not noticeable. Max Lehnhardt was the next runner in for Sandburg in 13^th (14:39). Chris Torpy followed in 16^th three seconds back. Brandon Lukas was the 4^th runner for Sandburg in 31^st. Tom Brennan finished 38^th to round out the scoring for his team. Not too many other teams were close to that as the Eagles ran a 33 second split on their top five.

“At the finish, you just want to leave it out there and not hold back. I knew that guys were close and I did not want anyone coming up on me,” Sean Torpy said afterwards. “This is wild. We had a lot of our guys returning from last year. We knew that we were very well capable of winning and redeeming ourselves a little bit. This is surreal. It’s unbelievable. This has been something that we have been dreaming about for so long.”

“This is unbelievable. It’s emotional. I’m crying,” Coach O’Malley added. “This is the 25^th year that we’ve had an O’Malley associated with this program so this is a pretty big thing for my family. I’ve had years here where I’ve had that sick feeling. To see people believe in something and work to get that is just so great.”

Lyons Township has received no national respect for its team all season when they rightly deserved it. They proved that they are one of the top teams in the nation with a 2^nd place finish with 118 points. The key to the Lions success all season has been their runners up front. That showed again in this race as they had 2 all-state runners and their top 4 in the first 33. Vince Zona ran a personal best 14:30 to finish 6^th as the #1 runner for the team. Sophomore Danny Kilrea concluded a great season 5 seconds behind Zona in 10^th. Connor Madell just missed out on all-state honors but finished 29^th despite being sick for the last week. Matt Begeman was three seconds behind Madell in 33^rd. Alex Pall was the team’s 5^th runner as he finished 72^nd.

Despite the fact that Neuqua Valley had no all-state runners, the Wildcats demonstrated some great team pack running in placing third overall with 175 points. Scott Anderson, who missed most of the season with a broken leg, led his team with a 34^th place finish. The split on their five scoring runners was only 12 seconds. York also had 175 points but were relegated to fourth due to a sixth runner tiebreaker. The Dukes were not mentioned as one of the top teams during the race but moved frantically in the final 800 from 8^th as a team to get to where they finished. It was Jackson Jett’s 60^th place finish as Neuqua’s 6^th runner that secured the trophy. Last year, they finished fourth missing the podium by 1 point.

“I feel really bad for York. They are a classy program. Joe Newton is one of my idols. I am happy that we got third but I wish that it was not at the expense of another team,” Neuqua Valley Coach Paul Vandersteen said. “We calculated it. Even if we had Connor Horn, we still would have gotten third. It was a full team effort. I can’t be more proud of these guys. Not all of them had their best race today but they hung in and fought. That’s all that matters.”

Lake Zurich finished fifth (207 points) with three all-state runners. Matt Pereira (5^th), Brian Griffith (8^th), and Kyle Griffith (21^st) lead five runners back in 2016 from this year’s state squad. They will be one of the teams to watch in 3A next season.