For Phil Hodur of St. Laurence, the door to track opened when the door to baseball closed.
"I got cut as a freshman," Hodur said of his baseball career. "One of the coaches said, 'Why don't you try track?' "
He did, and with splendid results, becoming one of the stalwarts on the Vikings track team, along with younger brother Josh.
Friday's Brother Rice Relays provided the latest example. Phil, a senior, won the high jump, holding off Brother Rice freshman Pat Baker, and took second in the triple jump. Josh, a junior, took the pole vault.
For Phil Hodur, the two events came back to back with no break in between. As a result, he had to erase the technique needed for the high jump while going to the triple jump lane.
"You think about the motion of the jump," Phil Hodur said.
Josh Hodur took the pole vault with 12 feet, 6 inches, a height he thought could have been surpassed, given that his season best is 15 feet. Like his brother, Josh took a detour to his appointed event as a freshman.
"The coaches said we needed one more pole vaulter, so I volunteered," Josh Hodur said. "I think it was to get out of running."
Ken Furlough of Brother Rice prevented a sweep of the field events the Hodurs were in, taking the triple jump as well as the long jump. He edged Phil Hodur by 31/2 inches in the triple jump with a best jump of 41-8, and took the long jump with a leap of 20-51/2, matching the area's fifth-best jump of the outdoor season.
On the track, the host Crusaders won four of the 11 races, but were denied by an eyelash in the elite mile. Josh Stein of Marmion Military Academy, with a time of 4 minutes, 21.8 seconds, beat Rich Eber to the line by a hand-timed tenth of a second, and it was probably closer than that.
Eber got his revenge by anchoring the Crusaders to victory in the distance medley relay, breezing in his 1,600-meter leg, which brought Rice the win in 10:51.1, a 22.6-second margin of victory over Marmion.
The Crusaders won the 3,200-meter frosh-soph relay, the 330-meter high hurdles and the mile medley. Providence and St. Laurence each won two races (the Vikings' wins including a 400-meter relay win for discus throwers and shot putters in the remarkably quick time of 49.4 seconds), while Stagg captured the 3,200-meter varsity relay.
Tinley Park Relays
Lincoln-Way East accumulated 105 points in taking first among the 12 competing squads. Rounding out the top five were Hillcrest (80), Sandburg (73), Andrew (45) and Crete-Monee (42).
Lincoln-Way East won six events, including the distance medley relay (10:43.49), high jump relay (17-6), shot put relay (137-9) and pole vault relay (35-6).
Hillcrest was a winner in the 400 relay (42.91), 800 relay (1:30.11) and sprint relay (1:36.18).
Sandburg triumphed in the 640 relay (18:08.68) and Andrew won the discus relay (373-111/2).
Crete-Monee took the long jump relay (65-7) and triple jump relay (126-5), while Mount Carmel emerged victorious in the 330 relay (49.67).