ALAH Knight’s Men Run At U of I

ALAH’s Logan Beckmier, second from the right, lines up next to Marion High School’s Dylan Nally at the start of the 3200 meter run at the Gene Armer Invite last Saturday. Nally was the Class 2A Cross Country champion last fall. Logan would finish just 4 seconds behind Nally in a huge PR time of 9:35.48. This time qualifies him for the Illinois Top Times meet also known at the Indoor State meet. The meet will be held at the Shirk Center on the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington on Friday, March 24.

On Saturday, March 18, seven members of the ALAH men’s track squad traveled to the University of Illinois to compete in the Armory at the prestigious Gene Armer Invitational hosted by Urbana High School. This meet featured many outstanding state leading efforts both on the track and in the field events.

In the first event of the day, the boy’s 3200 meters, the Knight’s Logan Beckmier squared off with Marion’s Dylan Nally, last fall’s Class 2A cross country champion. Beckmier covers the first mile in 4:41 just off Nally’s hot pace. After losing contact, Logan began reeling the state champion back in before falling just short to finish 2nd in a 14 second Personal Best of 9:35.48. This is the state’s 1A #3 time.

Next on the track for the Knights was the 4 x 800 relay squad. Looking for a State Indoor Championships qualifying time the team of Lyle Adcock, Jacob Adcock, Cruz Hale, and Logan Beckmier produced a season best time placing 5th at 8:49.45 behind 3 large schools. This time puts them on the bubble for Championships qualification

Lyle Adcock produced another excellent mile effort running an indoor PR and nearly an all time PR of 4:44.14 placing 6th behind 4 large school athletes to account for the remainder of the ALAH scoring.

The other athletes competing for ALAH all produced all time Personal bests! Max Duzan sprints to 20th place in the 60 @ 7.50 seconds while frosh Justin Schrock runs the furlong in a PR of 26.75 seconds to finish 38th. Jacob Adcock continues to improve speed hitting the 800 tape in an all time best of 2:16.18 finish finishing 23rd overall.

Jacob Tighe eclipsed the 40 foot barrier for the first time in his career to place 21st overall hitting 40’1.25”. Jacob got to watch one of the nation’s best as Sohn from Normal Community HS pitched the 12# ball over 63 feet breaking the meet record!

Of 54 teams from Marion to the Metro East to Chicago Heights Bloom Township, 34 schools scored with ALAH finishing tied with Decatur St. Teresa for 17th place.

The full men’s squad competes at Arcola HS on Tuesday March 21 at 4pm. On Friday March 24th, Illinois Wesleyan University will host the Illinois Top Times Indoor State Championships. The state’s top performers in each event will compete in all 3 classes. 2A and 3A events are on Saturday. The sprint events qualify the top 24 Times while the distance events qualify 15. Field events and relays qualify top 12 marks. The Knights hope to have representation in several events. Finalized entries will be notified Tuesday, March 21.