Gilman’s Tallier, Angell are double qualifiers; 4×400 also goes

Two young Gilman Pirates capped their stellar first seasons by clinching state berths, while some veterans will go back to state in a different relay thanks to their efforts in Thursday’s WIAA Division 3 Cameron track and field sectional.

The competition level rises a couple of notches from the regional to sectional levels, but Pirates Gracie Tallier and Bailey Angell rose to the challenge in their first-ever sectional appearances.

Tallier, a sophomore who had no season in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, extended her outstanding season by winning the sectional championship in the girls 100-meter dash and taking second in the 200-meter dash.

Angell, a freshman, was the runner-up in the discus behind another freshman, Jeanette Hydukovich of Colfax, and she got the fourth and final qualifying spot in the shot put by a mere 0.75 inches over Ladysmith sophomore Tori Thorpe.

Gilman senior Sophia Drier and juniors Aubrey Syryczyk and Ava Gunder- son, members of the Pirates’ state-qualifying girls 3,200-meter relay team in 2019, are headed back to state this year in the 1,600-meter relay, as they joined Tallier as fourth-place finishers in Thursday’s race.

The rest of Gilman’s and all of Rib Lake’s sectional entrants –– and there were several of them –– fell short of state bids but several finished with new personal records and momentum heading into what will hopefully be a full and normal 2022 season.

Gilman’s qualifiers will compete today, Thursday, in the WIAA Division 3 state championship meet which is being held at UW-La Crosse with the first events set to start at 11 a.m.

Girls meet

Angell had what Gilman head coach Mike Gingras called “a fantastic day” with personal-best marks in both of the girls throwing events.

Three days after extending her distance to 104 feet, 11 inches in the discus Division 3 sectional

Joined by her mother, Denise Warner, as well as Gilman head softball coach and co-athletic director Brian Phelps and high school principal and co-athletic director Jon Hess, Gilman senior Addy Warner recently signed on to play softball for the Madison College WolfPack next season. An All-Eastern Cloverbelt Conference pitcher and one of the top power hitters in the conference in 2021, Warner is joining a program that went 36-7 in the 2021 regular season before going 3-0 in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II Region 4 tournament and then falling twice in the national tournament. The program competes in the North Central Community College Conference (N4C), where it finished second behind Rock Valley College. The WolfPack is coached by Leo Kalinowski, who has led the program to nearly 300 wins in 10 seasons.

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at the Cadott regional, Angell got out to 105-9 on Thursday which put her solidly among the four state qualifiers in the event. Hydukovich won it at 110-11, while Angell was ahead of Unity sophomore Emma Johnson (104-3) and Siren senior Madison Thiex (103-8). Drummond freshman Nora Skoraczewski was a distant fifth at 100 feet even.

The results were tighter in the shot put. While Angell squeaked out the fourth-place finish over Thorpe (34-2.5) and Cumberland’s Amie West (33-9) with her throw of 34-3.25, Glenwood City senior Yasmin Mendez won it at 35-1, 9.75 inches ahead of Angell. Hydukovich was second at 35-0.25 and Johnson was third, an inch ahead of Angell.

Rib Lake junior Lauren Pelnis was ninth with a personal-best throw of 30 feet, 7 inches, beating her regional throw by 7 inches. Angell’s mark was a personal- best by 1.25 inches.

Angell enters the state meet as the ninth seed in the discus competition and the 15th seed in the shot put, based on sectional distances. Brooke Neumann of Northland Lutheran (117-9.5) and Emily Fink of Three Lakes (40-0.75) are the top seeds in those state events.

Tallier’s day on the track got off to a great start with a preliminary time of 12.81 seconds in the 100-meter dash that gave her the third seed in the final behind Unity’s Raegan Sorensen (12.72) and Glenwood City’s Marie Garcia (12.78) and her fastest time since her school-record 12.6 in Medford to start the season.

Final times weren’t as quick, but Tallier jumped ahead of the pack with a winning time of 13.06 seconds that clipped Garcia by just 0.01 seconds and Sorensen by 0.08 seconds. Alexandra Simeon of Turtle Lake-Clayton (13.15) also advanced. Tallier easily qualified for the 200-meter dash final with the fourth-fastest preliminary time of 27.39 seconds. By lowering her time to 27.32 seconds in the final, she finished second just 0.16 seconds behind Simeon, 0.23 seconds ahead of Mercer’s KD Knipp and 0.34 seconds ahead of fourth-place qualifi er Kendall Hagness of Durand. Mariah Thill of Turtle Lake-Clayton (28.07) and Isabella Forster of Elmwood-Plum City (31.23), who finished ahead of Tallier in the prelims, fell to seventh and ninth place in the final.

As always the state sprint field will be loaded with talent. Tallier is seeded 13th out of 18 entrants in the 100-meter field, based on sectional times, and she is seeded 14th out of 18 entrants in the 200-meter field.

The 1,600-meter relay team of Gunderson, Drier, Syryczuk and Tallier, with Abby Krug as an alternate, took fourth in Thursday’s race with a season-best time of 4:19.11, that beat the group’s regional time by 1.86 seconds and beat fifth-place Shell Lake by 3.59 seconds to clinch the trip to state.

Prairie Farm won the race in 4:12, while Ladysmith (4:13.26) and Glenwood City (4:18.39) also qualified for state ahead of the Pirates, who are seeded 13th out of 17 teams in the state race today. Fennimore is the favorite going in based on its sectional time of 4:04.2.

Gunderson, Drier and Syryczuk were part of Gilman’s 16th-place 3,200-meter relay team in 2019.

Gilman had two other sectional entrants in the girls meet. Tallier was 13th in the long jump at 14-6. The top four finishers were well above that with Webster’s Ava Washburn winning at 18-8.75 and Brooke Hetfeld taking fourth at 161.75. Krug was 15th in the 400-meter dash at 1:18.94. The top four finishers were between 1:00.39 and 1:02.88.

Rib Lake was busy with eight entries in the girls meet.

The ninth-place finish by Pelnis in the shot put was the team’s highest individual finish. Senior Jolee Gehrke was part of a four-way tie for ninth place in the high jump competition by clearing 4-8. Four jumpers cleared 4-10 but fell short of advancing. Simeon won it at 5-3, while Destiny Baughman of McDonell, Kristina Peterson of Chequamegon and Haylee Rasmussen of Boyceville all cleared 5 feet to qualify for state. Gehrke finished 10th in the 300-meter low hurdles with a time of 54.1 seconds. Ladysmith’s Kylee Becker won in 47.08 seconds, while Glenwood City’s Lexi Wannemacher got the fourth and final state spot at 48.64 seconds.

Junior Kylee Goodrich was 14th in the 1,600-meter run at 6:28.71. Freshmen Amber Yanko and Olivia Lopez set personal- best times in the 100-meter dash preliminaries while taking 13th and 14th at 13.67 and 13.78 seconds respectively.

Rib Lake’s top finish of the day was posted by its 400-meter relay team of Megan Yanko, Pelnis, Lopez and Amber Yanko, which took seventh in 55.48 seconds and scored two team points. The team lowered its time from the regional by 0.54 seconds and was 0.61 seconds shy of fourth-place Hurley. Ladysmith (52.94), Glenwood City (53.67) and Shell Lake (54.31) got the top three qualifying spots.

The team of Megan Yanko, Pelnis, Goodrich and Amber Yanko was 13th in the 1,600-meter relay at 4:57.52, beating Drummong by 6.38 seconds.

Gilman scored 36 points to place ninth out of 32 scoring teams, while Rib Lake was 32nd with its two points. Ladysmith won the sectional team championship with 74 points, easily beating Glenwood City (57.5), Unity (51), Webster (48.5) and Chequamegon (48.5).

Boys meet

Gilman’s Andrew Hecker and Dominic Franzen were the local athletes closest to state berths in Thursday’s boys meet.

Hecker, a senior, was part of a threeway tie for sixth place in the high jump, equaling his best height of the season that he’s hit several times at 5-8. Nick Casper of Cumberland won the tiebreaker over Chetek-Weyerhaeuser’s Lawson Davis at 5-10 to get the fourth spot. Glenwood City’s Malachi Keller and Riley Peterson of Clear Lake both cleared 6 feet to take the top two spots, an inch higher than Bruce’s Tyler Hoyt.

Hecker was seventh in the long jump at 19-8.5, just 1.5 inches off his seasonbest and 10.5 inches shy of state contention. Grantsburg sophomore Jordan Gaffney won the event at 21-5.5.

Franzen, a junior, capped a solid season with a personal-best time of 11.61 seconds in the 100-meter dash preliminaries. That got him the eighth spot in the final, where he placed seventh at 11.8 seconds, 0.22 seconds behind fourthplace finisher and state qualifier Sam Schradle of Cumberland. Spring Valley’s Justin Rielly (11.41) and Theisen Gus (11.44) and Tait Carson (11.51) of Eau Claire Regis also advanced.

Franzen had the eighth-best preliminary time in the 200-meter dash too at 24.04 seconds. He finished in 24.14 seconds in the final to stay in eighth place, a half-second shy of qualifying. Rielly (23.38), Gus (23.41), Ashton Kummet of Chetek-Weyerhaeuser (23.42) and Calin Lisson of Solon Springs (23.64) advanced.

“Andrew jumped well and Dominic ran quality races,” Gingras said.

Gilman got a 14th-place finish from its 800-meter team of Troy Duellman, Franzen, Braeden Person and Branden Ustianowski at 1:55.18. Junior Bryce Chovan, who pulled off an upset at the regional to get to Thursday, threw 85-6 to place 16th in the discus.

“Our coaching staff is very proud of our athletes’ accomplishments this year,” Gingras said. “We had a shortened season and our kids exceeded our expectations.”

The 800-meter team was the highest finisher of Rib Lake’s three relay entries. Freshman Ethan Keiser, sophomore Ben Petersen, freshman Donovan Sutherland and sophomore Dominick Classen took 10th in a season-best 1:42.39. Chetek-Weyerhaeuser (1:33.43), Spring Valley (1:34.17), Cumberland (1:35.38) and Chequamegon (1:36.97) got the state spots.

Keiser, Sutherland, junior Damien Peterson and Classen took 11th in the 400-meter relay at 50.22 seconds, just off its regional time of 49.66 seconds. Chetek- Weyerhaeuser (44.42), Regis (44.77), Grantsburg (45.55) and Cumberland (45.57) got the state berths.

In the meet’s final race, the 1,600-meter relay, sophomore Ryan Buehler, Petersen, Classen and Sutherland placed 13th in a season-best 3:53.08, beating Spring Valley (4:09.51) and Chequamegon (4:14.65). Grantsburg (3:34.11), Chetek-Weyerhaeuser (3:36.21), Colfax (3:36.42) and South Shore-Washburn (3:38.64) got the state spots.

Buehler was Rib Lake’s lone individual participant. He was 15th in the 1,600-meter run at 5:25.91, a personalbest by nearly eight seconds.

Ryan Buehler

Gilman’s seven points gave the Pirates 24th place in the team standings. Chetek-Weyerhaeuser scored 59 points to beat Grantsburg by one and Clear Lake by three for the team sectional title. Cumberland was fourth with 49 points.

Bailey Angell

Aubrey SyryczukSophia Drier

Ava Gunderson

Gracie Tallier