Oak Lawn Spartans Win Elusive Boys Track SSC Red Title

OAK LAWN, IL — The Oak Lawn Community High School boys track team knew that if they were going to have a chance to win the South Suburban Conference Red Championship May 11, they would need a complete team effort. As the sun set, the Spartans realized they got just that. With conference champions across both the track events and the field events, Oak Lawn earned the elusive conference title.

“This conference championship was a full team effort,” said OLCHS head coach John Jensen. “Everyone had to go out and execute and improve in areas as needed. Everyone was able to meet or exceed their seed placements earning them that trophy."

Going into this year’s conference meet, Jensen said the Spartans had last year’s heartbreaking close loss on their minds.

"We had some athletes last year have things not go their way and lost by six points," the coach added. "That was a driving factor for the team this year. They were able to achieve the goal they set out for since last season and win both the indoor and the outdoor conference championship this year.”

Senior Robert Wagner was a star of the show. He took first place in the high jump and long jump, while earning a third place in the 200-meter dash and a fourth place in the 400-meter relay.

“Robert was able to break our school record in the long jump, jumping 23-feet-10.22-inches,” Jensen said. “That jump also placed him as the number-one seed in the Illinois High School Association Class 3A rankings and number-two overall in the state of Illinois.”

Senior Ozzie Gamboa grabbed first place in both the shot put and in the discus. He won every meet in both those events for the month of April and at the conference meet. Fellow senior Eric Jackson won the 110-meter hurdles and took second in the 300-meter hurdles. Hunter Gray won the pole vault event, and Jake Franzen took second in the long jump, second in the high jump, and third in the triple jump.

Andrew Leon was able to take second in the 3,200-meter race, and the relay team of TJ Vrabel, Jayden Gordon, Fabian Soto, and Tadhg Walsh took third in the 800-meter relay.

The Spartans now look to advance to the IHSA Finals this week at the sectional meet.

~ Contributed by Brian Frangella, OLCHS Staff Writer