It was a great year for Plainfield sports. Here are the top stories that made it so great.
Fastest man in state
As soon as Plainfield Central senior Kahmari Montgomery won the Class 3A 100-meter dash with a time of 10.5 seconds, he was bestowed the title of Illinois’ fastest man – an unofficial title earned yearly by the winner of that race.
However, to make sure everyone knew just how fast he was, Montgomery went on to take home the state titles in the 200 and 400 as well, completing the trifecta of titles in the sprint events – a feat that had never been accomplished in class 3A.
“I was nervous, but I knew I could do it,” Montgomery said. “I just had to stay focused the whole day I have a lot of adrenaline and it all felt good today. (Winning the 100) really gave me a boost and I was just going to work on the 400 next and then the 200.”
He joins only Leo’s Ryan Shields in winning all three sprint events. Shields won the Class 2A title in all three events three times from 2000-2002.
Montgomery won the 200 with a time of 20.96, which came after he torched the field in the 400 with a time of 46.24.
His 400 time broke the state meet record of 46.51 that was set by Harold Leonard of Mt. Carmel in 1985.
Leonard’s mark was the longest standing track record in the state.
Montgomery is also the first back-to-back champion in the 200 and 400 in class 3A history.
Butterfly Effect
After four splits of the Plainfield District 202 schools, the athletic record books have come full circle – sort of.
Thirty years after Ben Bates became the first individual state champion in Plainfield history, winning the 200-yard individual medley at the boys’ state swim meet, Carly Kramer posted a time of 54.53 and claimed IHSA gold in the 100-yard butterfly, winning the first-ever state title for a Plainfield North athlete and the first-ever title for a district female swimmer.
“It is really an honor. I worked really hard for this,” Kramer said, fighting back tears of elation. “It has all been building to this. (When I finished) I didn’t look at the clock. I looked at my coach first because I knew if he was jumping up and down I had done it. I saw him celebrating and I knew then I did it, then I saw the clock and I was faster (than preliminaries) and I didn’t expect that. I was really a cool feeling.”
Wrestlemania
Just like Bates and Winder, McGee has cemented his name in District 202 lore by becoming the first state champion from his school.
Bates was Plainfield Central’s (the PHS) first individual state champion as a swimmer in 1984 and Winder was South’s first, winning the pole vault in 2005. Saturday, McGee became the first Plainfield East athlete to top the podium in an individual sport.
The East sophomore pinned Sandberg’s Louie Hayes in 3 minutes, 43 seconds to win the state title at 106 pounds at the Class 3A state tournament last weekend in the State Farm Center on the campus of the University of Illinois.
South junior Eric Johnson also competed for a state title at 220. He fell 9-6 to Joshua King of Hinsdale South.
It marked the third straight season a Cougar placed second at state, as Miguel Silva did the past two years.
Sectional champs
Plainfield North had all three facets of the formula for winning baseball—pitching, timely hitting and defense—going for it as the Tigers captured the Romeoville Class 4A Sectional with a 3-1 victory over Downers South.
It’s the first sectional baseball crown in school history for the Tigers (30-7), who fell to Mt. Carmel in the supersectional.
The victory avenged last year’s 10-1 sectional final loss to Downers South, which took a 1-0 lead in the second inning.
Senior third baseman Richard Bryza added a run-scoring double in the fourth for the Tigers, while fellow senior Matt Vanek went the distance on the mound, limiting the Mustangs to three hits.
Tracktown
Three seemed to be the magic number for Plainfield in the state meet.
In the 800 relay, East’s team of seniors Christian Glass and Kenyon Newbern-Marks and juniors Prince Smith and Jarvis Carter tied for third place with the North quartet of seniors Thomas Harris and Alex Ruscitti and juniors Zach Shelton, DeVaughn Hrobowski.
Both teams posted an identical time of 1:27.326.
Both foursomes also earned a second medal in the 400 relay as North placed fifth in a time of 42.32 and East was seventh in 42.75.
Sticking with the theme for the day, East’s Glass came back after a delay and placed ninth in the 100, earning his third medal of the weekend.
Classic heartbreak
With two top teams competing against each other, the Joliet Sectional championship game between No. 1 seed Lincoln-Way East and No. 2 Plainfield Central was going to come down to a couple key plays.
It was the Griffins who came away with a couple more key plays in a 2-1 victory to win the sectional title.
With the score tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the sixth, Blake Ruiz of Lincoln-Way East gave the Griffins their first lead, and the lead for good, with a home run.
The Wildcats nearly took the lead in the top half of the inning as they put runners on second and third with no outs, but were unable to push across the go-ahead run.
The Wildcats advanced to their third sectional final in four years with a 3-1 win over Homewood-Flossmoor.
Hannah Franceschini started the scoring with a single and a stolen base in the second, where she scored on a RBI from Sammi Newtoff. A hard-hit ball by Schlattman led to another run scored for a 2-0 lead after two.
The Vikings answered with a run in the top of the third, but the Wildcats got one back in the bottom of the sixth as again Franceschini started it with a single. Maddy Janssen followed with a pinch-hit single and a sacrifice from Newtoff and a wild pitch scored Franceschini.
Battle of 119th for regional title
When Plainfield North went on a 13-2 run in the third quarter to take the lead on Plainfield East, it looked like the Bengals might have let another game slip away.
Not this time.
The Bengals, the No. 6 seed in the Bolingbrook Sectional, came back strong in the fourth quarter and went on to win the Lincoln-Way North Regional title, 56-44 over the No. 3 seed Tigers in the first-ever all-Plainfield regional final.
It is the second regional title for East, the first basketball program in Plainfield to win multiple regional titles, despite being the youngest.
Both teams won two games against each other the past two years and won a conference title each, so this game was the ultimate tiebreaker and revenge for East, which took second in both tournaments it played in this year.
Tran 4th in state
Over the course of a week, every time the Plainfield co-op boys swimming team left the pool after a particular meet, it had shattered old program records and established new standards.
Plainfield made even more team history at the state meet. Brandon Tran became the first co-op swimmer to ever compete in a state championship heat. The junior ended up finishing fourth in the 100 breaststroke in 57.49 seconds, shaving nearly a second off his sectional time.
Tran’s fourth-place finish also is the highest finish at state in program history, and he’s the program’s first multiple state medal winner as well. He made it to the consolation heat of the 200 individual medley on Saturday; his eighth-place time of 1:53.42 was over one second faster than his preliminary time (1:54.75). Tran last year was Plainfield co-op’s first-ever state medal winner (a seventh-place finish in the breaststroke).
Lau all-state for 2nd time
Plainfield North’s Rachael Lau cemented her legacy as the top District 202 cross-country runner of all-time Saturday at the Class 3A state meet at Detweiller Park.
Two years ago Lau became the first female to make All-State in cross country and Saturday she duplicated the feat with a 12th-place finish with a time of 16:54.
“Last year I didn’t have the best race, so this year, I really wanted to go out with a bang,” Lau said. “I knew my mistakes from last year. Last year, I went out too fast, so I really wanted to stay calm and not get really squirrely during the race.
North bowling 10th
In its first trip to the state meet, Plainfield North set a new first by advancing to finals as one of the top 12 teams from Friday at the state meet at St. Clair Bowl in O’Fallon.
They held their place Saturday, finishing in 10th place with a 12,172 total. Hononegah won the tournament with a 12,909.
Advancing to finals was a big step for the program in its first time competing at the state meet.