Kits Take Down Four Records In Championship Run

Evanston’s track team turned in a great performance Friday night at the Central Suburban League South division meet at Glenbrook South.

The good news for Wildkit fans? There’s plenty more left in the tank.

Fueled by record-breaking performances in four events, Evanston raced to its first team title since 2018, ending a frustrating drought in emphatic fashion. The Wildkits piled up 160 points, easily out-pacing runner-up New Trier’s 115.5, on their way back to the top.

Coach Don Michelin’s squad established four new conference records --- in the 400-meter relay, 110 hurdles, and the 100 and 400-meter dashes --- and scored 8 first place finishes overall in a dominating performance dating back to when no one had ever heard of COVID-19, gasoline prices were half of what they are now, and the Kits were always the team to beat in the regular season-ending showdown in the CSL.

“We do it in so many areas, in the sprints, in the hurdles, in the jumps. This is one of the best teams I’ve ever been around,” said Michelin. “The CSL is just so tough and we’ve run into some really good teams in the past. Now, hopefully, we’re back. They’re getting that message about being the best version of themselves. It was a complete team effort.”

Friday’s headliners were double winners Jordan Harvey (110 hurdles, 300 hurdles) and Jaden Jean-Paul (high jump, triple jump). Sprinters Manny Blake and Justin Johnson built momentum for the sectional with record victories in the 100 and 200, respectively, and the Kits also ruled the 400 and 800 relays.

Harvey won the 300 hurdles conference crown for the third year in a row --- a rare feat in itself ---- with a clocking of 39.57 seconds. But it was his eye-opening performance in the shorter race that helped Harvey join the ranks of elite hurdlers in Illinois.

The ETHS senior, coming off a personal best clocking of 14.26 the previous week, blazed to a winning time of 14.03 that wiped out the previous CSL record of 14.14 set back in 2015. He also inched closer to the school record of 13.99 currently owned by former Wildkit star Robert Simmons.

An improvement of 2-10ths of a second might not seem like much to the average fan. But it spoke volumes about Harvey’s potential for the sectional and State meets.

“I’m more disappointed with my 300 than I am about the 14 flat,” Harvey explained. “I was looking to get down to 37 (seconds) so that wasn’t my best. But right now I’m (ranked) 10^th in the state in the 110s, so I’ll take that.

“That’s a pretty big jump from running 17 in that race when I was a freshman. I didn’t run that race at all my sophomore and junior years. But Coach Michelin thought I could score some points in the 110s this year. I did have some doubts about it, but I tried not to let that get into my head. I watched a lot of video trying to get better and I’m obsessed with getting perfect form. I’m always trying to get my technique down.”

“We watched Jordan run some 4 x 200s indoors. He just got better and better, and it helped him get faster in between the hurdles,” Michelin said. “Coach May (former head coach and ex-Olympic hurdler Willie May) always said that flat running aids hurdlers. He’s also bigger and stronger. He’s a great kid who comes in every day and works his tail off.”

Jean-Paul claimed his second straight conference championship in the high jump, with a leap of 1.98 meters, and barely missed on all three of his attempts at 7 feet, 0.25 inches. He settled for 3^rd place in the long jump --- where he was the defending champ --- then regrouped to take top honors in the triple jump with a best effort of 14.04 meters.

Evanston’s record assault began in the 400 relay, where the quartet of Emmanuel Roche, Anthony Honore, Blake and Johnson burned the field with a winning time of 41.13. New Trier set the previous mark last year at 41.85.

Blake’s breakthrough season continued in the 100. The rising junior flashed to a winning time of 10.54 with a slight wind at his back, easily erasing the previous CSL South record set by last year’s state champion, William Landwer of New Trier. Landwer was clocked in 10.63 at the league meet in 2025.

And in the 200, Johnson ran what might have been the best race of his track career now that his focus has shifted from football to track for the last three weeks of the season. He took the title in 21.24, barely beating Blake’s 21.29.

Robert Simmons’ old CSL record of 21.3 was established back in 1993 but didn’t survive the determined Johnson’s dash. The victory marked Johnson’s first conference championship and will likely be his last, because he plans to graduate high school early next year in order to participate in spring football practice at the University of Illinois.

It also helped him make up for a mistake in the 100, where he misjudged the finish line after meet officials flipped the start to the south end of the stadium at GBS to take advantage of the prevailing wind.

“I don’t really feel good about winning conference because I’m disappointed in my 100,” he said after finishing 3^rd in 10.70. “It threw me off --- I saw two different lines at the finish --- and I pulled up before the finish line. I leaned at the first line and then I realized that people were still running. That’s never happened to me before.

“I had to make up for that in the 200. I still feel like I have a lot more work to do. I haven’t run the 200 in a couple of weeks (due to some conflicts with his participation in 7-on-7 football training) and it was time for me to run fast. I finally did it. It’s hard to do two different sports at the same time, but now that football is over, I can really hone in on track now.

“It’s really competitive (in the sprints) every day at practice because Manny is having such a great year. He’s extremely fast and it feels good to see him push himself. It feels good just to run with him.”

Johnson’s record showing Friday almost guarantees that he won’t be part of the 1600 relay unit going forward. He was part of a championship relay team (along with Roche, Blake, and Reginald Bell) in the 800, where the Kits blitzed the competition in a winning time of 1:27.65.

Without him in the 1600 lineup, the foursome of Deshawn Preister, Andrew Rich, Harvey and Honore was edged out for the title by New Trier by a margin of 3:23.42 to 3:23.48.

“Justin showed me something tonight,” Michelin said. “I told him he had to run well to get off of that relay (the open 200 is right before that race on the meet schedule). I was talking about a time of maybe 21.4 --- and he blew that away.”

The Wildkits also counted top 3 individual finishes from Chance Simmons, 2^nd in the long jump at 6.57; Lucas Anderson, 2^nd in the 100 hurdles in 14.75; Preister, 2^nd in the 400 in 49.42; Abdul Hassan Ouedraogo, 3^rd in the shot put at 39.50; and Honore, 3^rd in the 400 in 50.32.