Boys Track: Malachy Schrobilgen to run one more time

Updated: June 5, 2012 6:11PM

Malachy Schrobilgen isn’t afraid to run against the best.

The recent Oak Park-River Forest graduate will race competitively one more time 13 days after becoming the second runner from OPRF to win the state’s 3,200-meter run. The Wisconsin-bound Schrobilgen will run in the boys mile run at 7 p.m. Friday night in the first Midwest Distance Festival at Joliet Memorial Stadium.

Schrobilgen has run previously in the postseason at the Midwest Distance Gala at Benedictine University in Lisle, but that meet has folded after a feud between officials.

The new event features top runners from across the Midwest. Unlike the Class 3A state meet, Schrobilgen will run in only one event and will bypass the 2-mile. The new meet also includes steeplechase races.

“I saw an advertisement on this on the Internet,” Schrobilgen said. “Once I saw the runners that would be there, I knew I wanted to be there.”

Schrobilgen competed in the Gala as a freshman and sophomore, but could not compete in last year’s meet for the 2-mile due to an illness after returning from the state meet.

For Friday night’s race, Schrobilgen owns the third fastest seed time (4:11.44) in the 1,600. The favorites in the race are senior Jason Crist (4:09.12) of Franklin Central in Indianapolis and senior Russell Sandvold (4:11.39) of Arrowhead in Hartland, Wis.

One of Schrobilgen’s top in-state competitors is Class 2A state champion Michael Clevenger (4:13.34) of Decatur MacArthur.

“This is my last race and then I will get ready for college,” Schrobilgen said. “I want to get around 4:09 or something around there, especially with that talent in the field. We’ll see what happens. It’s a really fast field.”

This summer, Schrobilgen does not imagine spending much time for specialty training before leaving for college in August. He is not expected to report to Wisconsin until a few weeks before classes start.

He plans on running with his former OPRF teammates this summer during their offseason workouts.

Schrobilgen will work at the high school summer camp for youth runners this summer and will complete the season as an umpire for Oak Park Tee-ball teams. One of his new jobs is working the bookstore at OPRF, which doesn’t allow Schrobilgen to get outdoors as much.

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