Sports
Athlete of the Week: H-F's Cheeks Leaps to Victory
Vikings senior battles through terrible weather conditions to produce one of state's best long jumps of the season.
Despite facing absolutely brutal conditions at the Homewood-Flossmoor boys track invitational, the Vikings’ Cedric Cheeks excelled.
Cheeks won the long jump with a leap of 22 feet, 6.5 inches, which ranks as the eighth-best effort in state this outdoor season.
Rain, sleet, blustery wind and chilly temperatures Saturday made for tough track conditions, but they didn’t seem to affect Cheeks.
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For his efforts, Cheeks has been named Patch’s Athlete of the Week.
“I’m not really used to running in the cold,” Cheeks said. “That was my personal best today, and I wasn’t expecting to jump that far.”
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It was the kind of performance H-F coach Nate Beebe is looking for from Cheeks, who’s also a key contributor in the sprints for the Vikings.
“That’s the kind of jumps we’re expecting out of him,” Beebe said. “He also did a nice job leading off our (800 relay) and then did a good job to get to the finals of the 200.”
