Track & Field: Rock Falls sweeps Ferris Invite at Princeton

PRINCETON - Rock Falls was expected to win the girls portion of the Ferris Invitational on Tuesday night, and it did, defeating host Princeton, the defending champion, 270-214.

The championship was the Rock Falls girls fourth title in the past five invites at Princeton.

The Rockets also unexpectedly won the boys championship, their fourth straight. The Rockets held off favored Kewanee 266-249 for the title, with Princeton third at 184.

“I don’t think we were supposed to win it if you look at the seeds coming in. We knew it’d be tight. We’d knew it be close,” Rock Falls coach Eric Bontz said. “This is a meet we’ve won the last few years, a meet we really like coming to. There’s a lot of good athletes, and I told my guys they were going to have to compete well. We had a lot of PRs and good things that went a long ways for us tonight.”

“I don’t think we were supposed to win it if you look at the seeds coming in. We knew it’d be tight, we’d knew it be close.”

—  Eric Bontz, Rock Falls coach

Rock Falls freshman Adan Oquendo had a sprints double, winning the 100 (11.5) and 200 (23.26).

“I think I can get faster. There’s a lot of room to improve,” said Oquendo, whose dad, Jose, holds meet records and was the Ferris Most Outstanding Athlete. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work. Just keep putting in the effort, keep grinding.”

The Rockets also got wins from Christian Hernandez in the long jump (5.7m), Brady Root in the 800 (2:11.36), Anthony Valdiva in the 1,600 (4:52.62), Jose Gomez in the 3,200 (10:46.4), Devin Tanton in the pole vault (3.35m) and the 4x800 (8:56.37) and 4x400 (3:46.2) relays).

The Rock Falls girls also had multiple winners.

Sisters Amara Thomas in the high jump (1.50m) and Aniya Thomas in the 300H (56.67) each got a win under their belt. Amara said she’s making good progress.

“I started the season very rocky. I didn’t do as good as I did last year, but I think today, I finally locked myself back in and been competing harder than I did last year,” she said. “I’m very excited. I’m very focused on making it down to the Big Blue track (state). I really want to go.”

Also for the Rockets, Kat Scott won the 800 (2:34.6), Carli Kobbeman (RF) won the long jump (4.59m), Ariel Hernandez won the 3200 (11:52.82) and Hanah Ford won the 1600 (5:40.31)

St. Bede senior Anna Lopez was named as the Most Outstanding Girls Athlete. She won the triple jump, breaking her own school record at 11.06 meters. She placed second in the long jump (4.56m) and ran on the Bruins winning relay efforts in the 4x200 (1:52.15) and 4x100 (52.2) relays.

Kewanee’s Jaiden Little was named as the boys Most Outstanding. He won the 300H (44.53) and 110 H (16.74) and ran on the Boilers’ winning effort in the 4x200 relay.