Notre Dame Still Unable to Catch Loyola

It was an overwhelming task from the start.

Loyola High simply doesn’t lose dual meets.

So the Notre Dame boys’ track and field team was content to draw consolation from its 75-52 defeat Thursday to the Cubs in a Mission League opening dual meet at Loyola.

“I thought we did pretty well, all things considered,” Coach Joe McNab of Notre Dame said.

“We came through with some good times. We showed we have a good chance to compete in [Southern Section Division III].”

No, the Knights (0-1) still haven’t defeated Loyola (2-0) in a dual meet since 1987.

And the Cubs took a giant step toward their 12th consecutive league dual meet title.

But McNab came away impressed with the performance of his team.

One of the most impressive was junior Jonathon Williams, who led a sweep in the 110-meter high hurdles in 15.1 seconds and won the 300 intermediate hurdles in 40.6.

“We were swept [by Loyola] in the hurdles in previous years, so we were ready for this,” said Williams, who finished third in the 110s in the league meet last season.

Darren Quinn also turned in a strong effort, capturing the 800 in 2:01.5 and anchoring Notre Dame’s 1,600 relay team that won by more than five seconds in 3:28.4.

“They have a good track team and so do we,” Quinn said. “But we’ll go against them again in the [Southern Section] finals and I’d much rather have a [section] title than a league title.”

The only other individual winners for Notre Dame were Travis Johnson in the shotput and Cody Pearson, who tied for first with a leap of 6 feet in the high jump.

Johnson, who won the Division III title in the shotput last season, won his specialty by nearly 10 feet with a throw of 56-2 3/4.

“I’m right where I want to be throwing at this time of the season,” Johnson said. “I haven’t really been practicing too much but I’m about at the same place I was last year.”

Loyola was led by double winners Matt Ware in the 100 and long jump, Robbie Hambleton in the 200 and 400 and Reggie Oronoz in the 1,600 and 3,200.

Notre Dame took a 28-22 lead after six events, and Coach Greg Wells of Loyola was a little concerned.

“Whenever we compete against Notre Dame we always expect a close meet,” Wells said. “I don’t think the score reflected how close this meet really was.”