The Niles West Boys Track and Field team tied for 27th at state finals last Saturday at Eastern Illinois University, with the 4×8 team of seniors Marc-Daniel Julien, Blake Helton, and Neal Omar and junior Yandiel Cardenas taking 7th place with a time of 7:52, Omar winning 7th place and all-state honors in the 800 meter run with a time of 1:55, and Terrance Bramlett winning 6th in the shot put, throwing 55 feet, which also earned him all-state honors.

The team also qualified a 4×8 team downstate, but the relay team didn’t make it to the finals, finishing with a time of 3:31 in the state preliminaries.

Head coach Chris Vivone was happy with the team’s performance, but he recognized that they could have done better, saying “It was a nice surprise to see Bramlett place so highly in the shot put; we weren’t expecting him to do that well, but we were in a tough spot with Omar running both the 4×800 and the 800 on a very hot weekend.  We were happy to see him place in both, but we wanted to do a little better.  Overall, we could have done better downstate, but it’s still tremendous to see us place in three events.”

Cardenas agrees with Vivone’s assessment of the team’s trip downstate, saying “We could’ve done a lot better than how we performed, so in that sense, it was definitely disappointing. If we had run our fastest times, we would’ve won the (4×8).”

Despite a somewhat disappointing state final, Cardenas hopes the team will do better next year.

“This state trip has given us a lot to look forward to in the coming year.  We want to work even harder next year to get back (to state) again, and we’re looking forward to it.”