The future is bright for Cathedral High School boys track and field.
What made the 2023 season memorable is that the present was bright, too – and that made for a successful season for the Irish.
It was a season of improvement, development and performance.
“It was a fun group to see grow throughout the season,” Irish track and field coach John O’Hara said of the boys team in 2023.
The Irish, who featured youth and experience in ‘23, also featured high character and strong academics. It was a talented group that performed consistently well, winning the Pendleton Heights Invitational and finishing second at the Indianapolis City Meet.
They finished fifth at the Section 19 meet, then finished 12th at the Regional 5 meet.
Junior Jonathan Phillips advanced to the state meet in the 100-meter dash after placing sixth at the regional meet in 10.9 seconds. The Irish 4x100 relay team of junior Alex Richards, Phillips, sophomore Devaughn Slaughter and senior Sterling Smith finished ninth at the state meet in 42.23.
“It was an awesome year to really have almost like an even setup with the amount of seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen we rely on, and it's not very typical,” O’Hara said. “It’s a little unusual to have a lot of freshmen and sophomores be high level varsity and we're not just throwing in them in there to throw in for spots. We thought they could compete and they proved that.”
Senior Dylan Keller advanced to the state meet in the pole vault with a third-place finish at 13-feet-0 in the regional meet.
“He was definitely one of our top leaders, just his consistency at practice every day,” O’Hara said. “He was in an event that is super specific to the sport and he did an amazing job of kind of always being that Steady Eddy.”
Also key were the relay teams, with the 4x100 team finishing second at the sectional meet in 42.26. Phillips ran a 10.91-record 100 at the City meet, and the 4x-100 broke a school record late in the season that had stood since 1999 and rebroke the record at the state meet.
“I saw that record happen when I was in high school,” O’Hara said, laughing. “So it was kind of cool to see that one go down.”
The 4x400 team of Richards, freshman James Pappas, sophomore Aden Chase and sophomore Aidan Cunningham finished fourth at sectional in 3:29.61 and seventh at regional in 3:32.15. The 4x800 team – senior Liam Eifert, junior Josh Castor, senior Nick Busam and senior Luke Pehlman – developed as the season continued and finished second at sectional 8:07.90.
Eifert also placed sixth at the regional meet in the 3200 in 9:48.12.
“Our four by eight squad was really phenomenal,” O’Hara said.
Senior shot putter Brennan Wooten, who will play football at Western Michigan, broke the school record and finished sixth at regional in 51-feet-2.
O’Hara said three freshmen shared the Newcomer of the Year award: Isaac Nelson, who set freshman school record in the 100 and 200; hurdler Jackson Harvey, who broke freshman school records in both hurdle races; and Pappas, who broke the 400 freshman school records.
“I really couldn't give it to one,” O’Hara said. “These are records that were set by other previous pretty high level varsity kids. They're projecting pretty well to being pretty special contributors over the next three seasons.”
Placing at the sectional meet were:
Phillips (100, fourth, 10.89 second), Pappas (400, sixth, 52.21), Castor (800, seventh, 2:02.81), freshman Jackson Klitzman (1,600, seventh, 4:57.03), Eifert (3,200, third, 9:42.57), Harvey (110 hurdles, third, 16.30), Harvey (300 hurdles, third, 42.10), Wooten (shot put, fourth, 51-11), and Wooten (seventh, discus, 124-0).
“It’s kind of funny because a lot of times your track teams are built like your football programs where every spot on a football team kind of involves a different style of athlete,” O’Hara said. “If your football programs are good, I always think your track programs can be good and vice versa. They both help each other in the long run.
“Working with [Irish head football coach [Bill] Peebles, you can kind of see the progress on both sides and how they kind of benefit each other.”
O’Hara said that spirit runs through the entire Cathedral athletic program, benefitting all programs – including track and field. That approach is one reason O’Hara said a boys track-and-field program that has improved steadily in recent seasons should continue to do so.
“We knocked on the door all season,” O’Hara said. “We were still kind of a young squad, but at the same time, we weren’t afraid of the competition even though we ran a lot of sophomores – and freshman and juniors as well. We will return pretty much 95 percent of our roster next year, which is wild.
“We’re very excited about that.”
Phillips placed sixth in the 100 at regionals in 10.90, with Eifert placing sixth in the 3,200 in 9:48.12.
The 4x100 relay Alex Richards, Jonathon Phillips, Devaughn Slaughter, Isaac Nelson finished third at regionals in 42.41. The 4x400 team Richards, Pappas, Chase, Cunningham finished seventh in the regionals in 3:32.15.
Keller finished third in the regional with a vault of 13-0 with Wooten finishing sixth with a shot of 51-feet-2.
