Girls continue to outrun competition; Sullivan wins twice at West

WAUSAU WEST INVITATIONAL

The Medford girls continued to showcase their speed on the track in a secondplace finish, while Joe Sullivan won the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs Friday when the Raiders faced their best competition of the still-young season at the Wausau West Warrior Invitational.

In a meet that scored individual events up to 16 places, rather than the traditional eight, the Raiders piled up 375.5 points in the girls meet to settle comfortably into second place behind the host Warriors (418) and ahead of thirdplace Two Rivers (327.5) and fourth-place Mosinee (318).

Whether it was distance, relays or sprints, the racing Raiders scored well.

With their one-two finish in the 3,200-meter run, Alicia Kawa and Jennifer Kahn gave Medford 31 points. Kawa pulled away from the other eight entrants and won in 12:19.44, while Kahn edged Two Rivers’ Olivia Stanley by 1.78 seconds to finish second in 12:54.31.

Meredith Richter moved to the 400-meter dash and the freshman got a nice win in 1:02.93, beating Wausau West’s Grace Albee by 1.27 seconds. Sophomore Alyssa Brandner took fifth in a seasonbest 1:07.32. Richter and Kawa teamed up to score 29 points for Medford in the 1,600-meter race with Richter placing second in a season-best 5:38.4 and Kawa taking third in 5:40.92. Sophomore Mikaela Helling of Two Rivers won handily in 5:10.82.

Alexis Fleegel and Ella Daniels put 23 points on the board in the 800-meter run. Fleegel took third in a season-best 2:36.93, while Daniels was eighth in 2:50.78, a half-second off her previous meet. Fleegel, Brooke Rudolph, Kahn and Daniels ran the 3,200-meter relay in 10:39 to place third out of six teams. Auburndale beat Two Rivers by just 0.15 seconds with a time of 10:31.71.

The sprint crew earned two relay wins and some solid individual finishes.

Marissa Fronk, Karli Higgins, Sophie Brost and Bryn Fronk won the 800-meter relay in 1:49.69, beating West by 3.31 seconds. The Fronk sisters, Brost and Jaylin Machon took the 400-meter relay in 51.79 seconds, edging West by 0.74 seconds. Higgins, Richter, Bryn Fronk and Brandner finished the meet with a strong second- place run in the 1,600-meter. Their time of 4:21.06 left them 6.97 seconds behind Mosinee and 2.99 seconds ahead of Wausau West.

Marissa Fronk’s time of 27.7 seconds in the 200-meter dash put her in second place, 1.13 seconds behind Mosinee’s Kate Fitzgerald. Machon added a 10thplace time of 29.78 seconds. Brost took fourth in the 100-meter dash at 13.84 seconds, 0.79 seconds behind Fitzgerald’s winning time. Machon was ninth in 14.46 seconds and Lindsey Klapatauskas was 10th in 14.48 seconds.

Rudolph took sixth (55.78) in the 300-meter low hurdles. Brenley Beran was 10th (20.96) in the 100-meter high hurdes.

Machon had Medford’s highest finish in the field, taking third in the pole vault by clearing a personal-best 8 feet. Rudolph was seventh at 7 feet, 6 inches and Daniels tied for eighth at 7 feet.

Brost went 28-5 to take fourth in the triple jump, while Klapatauskas was seventh at 27-7. Klapatauskas (26-0.75) also took 13th in the shot put. Higgins was seventh in the long jump at 14-9.75.

Marathon was fifth in the team standings with 303 points, followed by Wausau East (264.5), Auburndale (193) and Crandon (91.5)

Boys finish 5th

Medford compiled 248 points in the boys meet to outscore Mosinee (228), Auburndale (185.5) and Crandon (59). Wausau West easily won the meet with 514 points, followed by Two Rivers (376.5), Wausau East (329) and Marathon (313).

Easily winning was something Sullivan did in his distance races. First, he won the 1,600-meter run in 4:35.37, dropping about nine seconds from his first meet of the year and beating Zach Fries of Two Rivers by 9.09 seconds. Vincent Seidel added an eighth-place time of 5:22.68 for Medford and Jack Tlusty was 10th at 5:58.22.

Later, Sullivan won the 3,200-meter race in 10:27.91, beating runner-up Erik Mikalofsky of Wausau West by 20.74 seconds. Carson Church, Owen Wipf, Tristan Price and Tlusty teamed up early in the meet to take second in the 3,200-meter relay at 9:01.58, 10.1 seconds behind West. Wipf was fifth in the 800-meter run at 2:15.43.

Cory Lindahl, Wipf, Price and Church closed the meet with a fourth-place finish in the 1,600-meter relay at 3:45.12. West won in 3:32.53. Cole Dassow, Lindahl, Jude Stark and Logan Kawa were sixth in the 800-meter relay at 1:45.41.

Church and Tyler Kapitz scored 27 points in the 400-meter dash with their third- and fourth-place finishes. Church’s time was a season-best 54.68 seconds, while Kapitz came in at 55.26 seconds. West’s Reed Napiwocki won in 53.02 seconds. Kapitz was sixth in the 200-meter dash at 24.62 seconds, Dassow was 12th at 27.03 seconds and Kawa was 14th in 27.61 seconds. Kapitz added an eighth-place time on 12.14 seconds in the 100-meter dash, while Dassow was 13th at 12.69 seconds.

Lindahl took ninth in the 110-meter high hurdles at 22.04 seconds.

In the field, Ty Baker surpassed 40 feet in the triple jump for the second straight meet, going 40-3.75 to take third out of 15 jumpers. He was a quarter-inch shy of second. Church took 12th at 34-8.5. Baker was ninth in the long jump at 19-2.25.

Kawa cleared 8-6 and placed fifth in the pole vault, while Adam Kowalski was 10th at 7 feet. Jake Seifert was ninth in the shot put with a toss of 38-11.5 and 10th in the discus at 105-4.