Big efforts put Sullivan, 4×800 relay on podium

WIAA DIV. 2 STATE TRACK & FIELD

Earning top-six medals at state isn’t supposed to be easy and it definitely wasn’t Friday for Medford’s Joe Sullivan and the Raiders’ girls 3,200-meter relay team of Alexis Fleegel, Jennifer Kahn, Alicia Kawa and Meredith Richter during the WIAA Division 2 track and field championships at UW-La Crosse.

Sullivan cut four seconds off his sectional time and won a sprint to the finish line with two other runners to place fifth in the boys 1,600-meter run and earn his first state medal. He later put together another gutsy effort to finish ninth in the 3,200-meter run.

The girls relay team broke through with a nearly 12-second improvement from its sectional time with all four members having to give all they had to get the sixth-place medal in their race.

“I just kept counting,” said Richter, the relay team’s freshman anchor for its state race. “We were sixth, then I got passed, so we were seventh and I said, ‘that’s not OK. I gotta get back up there and get sixth.’” The medals for the relay team and Sullivan as well as Sullivan’s top-10 finish in the 3,200 highlighted a fairly busy Friday for the Raiders. The girls 400-meter relay team had a solid finish to its season, taking 11th in a season-best 51.71 seconds. Senior Ty Baker closed out his prep career with a 16th-place finish in the boys triple jump and Alicia Kawa competed in the girls 3,200-meter run but, unfortunately, did not finish the race.

Sullivan finishes strong

Sullivan, a junior, knew he had two races to run on Friday, but there was no conserving energy in the first one, the 1,600-meter run.

The pace was fast and the field of 15 was tightly packed through the first 800 meters. At the 800-meter mark, Sullivan was in seventh place at 2:14.57, just behind Evansville’s Riley Siltman and less than a second ahead of everyone else.

“That was a good race,” he said. “It was fun. It was fast. Great competition. That’s what you want.

“In that first lap, I found a good spot right away and I was like, ‘this would be nice,’” Sullivan continued. “Right around 500 meters in, all of a sudden everyone tried coming around a little bit and trying to pick it up. I was getting boxed in a little bit. I almost fell there. I tripped up a little bit. I caught myself and I was able to come around the outside and find a place.”

Sullivan ended the third lap in sixth place, just 0.05 seconds ahead of Berlin’s Isaac Lueck and those two waged a headto- head battle until the last 25 meters. Sullivan hit another gear in the homestretch and made the fourth lap his fastest, clocking at 1:02.69 for an overall time of 4:24.27. Lueck was passed right at the end by Neillsville’s Taytor Lowry, who got the sixth-place medal at 4:25.18, while Lueck settled for seventh at 1:03.48.

Brillion’s Hunter Krepline won the race with an impressive 58.45-second final lap to finish in 4:14.65. The top seed coming, Shane Griepentrog of Valders, was second in 4:15.39, while Leo Richardson of Madison Edgewood (4:17.04) and Logan Measner of Kettle Moraine Lutheran (4:21.74) earned the third- and fourth-place medals.

“On my second and third lap I was just seeing what place I was in and what I had to get to,” Sullivan said. “The last lap I started catching guys. At 300 and 200 all of a sudden there were two guys next to me and I was like, ‘I know I have to beat them both.’ Hopefully I could hold them off the last 200.”

As the sixth seed, based on sectional times (4:28.11), Sullivan knew getting to the awards podium was within reach.

“I wanted to podium for sure,” he said. “That was the goal. Happy I did that.”

About three hours later, Sullivan was back at it in the 3,200-meter run.

Again the pace was quick and it took all Sullivan had to stay on the fringe of medal contention for much of the race. He was in 13th place through five of the eight laps but worked his way back up to 10th by the end of the seventh lap and finished with his fastest lap of the race, a 1:11.41, to creep into the ninth position at 9:56.72, just ahead of Siltman (9:57.09). Sullivan broke the 10-minute barrier for the first time after just missing in three of his previous four races.

Griepentrog was again the top seed and this time the junior came through, getting past Richardson on the last lap to win by 1.27 seconds in 9:22.75. Drew Stephens from the University School of Milwaukee was third in 9:26.24, while Krepline (9:45.4), Clay Taylor of Valders (9:46.65) and Nathaniel Osborne of Brookfi eld Academy (9:48.94) also earned medals.

Baker entered state triple jump competition knowing it would take his best- ever jump in the preliminaries to make the top 10 and reach the finals. Seeded 13th, that jump didn’t come for Baker. A misstep on his first approach led to a foul. He got on the board with a decent jump of 39 feet, 9 inches in his second attempt and hit 38-7.25 on his third try. The 10th-place jump in preliminaries was 417.5.

Top-seeded Camden Combs of Beloit Turner didn’t hit the 45-6.5 he got at his sectional, but he still won the state title with a preliminary jump of 44-7.5. Big Foot’s Tyler Wilson was second at 44 feet and New London’s Kyle Wisniewski was third at 43-5.25.

Sullivan’s fifth-place finish in the 1,600-meter run gave Medford four team points as the Raiders tied for 49th place in the final standings. Lodi and Jefferson both scored 40 points to share the team championship.

Girls relays shine

Seeded sixth and running in the “fast heat,” Medford’s girls 3,200-meter relay team knew it had a shot at reaching the podium. But it also knew it would take an all-out effort to keep up with the other nine teams in the heat.

“There was definitely some stiff competition,” Kawa said. Fleegel reached the end of her 800-meter leg in 2:29.85 and in ninth place. She kept the Raiders close despite getting boxed in throughout her run. She was just 1.05 seconds behind the sixth-place first runner from New Berlin Eisenhower, Sophia Melnyk, when she passed the baton.

“I was stuck behind a bunch of girls,” Fleegel said. “I was trying to get past them but it didn’t really work out. I still got a decent time. I really wanted to pass them there.”

Kahn took the baton next and, with a time of 2:32.88, caught runners from Osceola and Mount Horeb to put the team’s two quickest runners in a good position with just one team to catch to put the Raiders on the podium.

“I was like, ‘oh crap I have to get some people. We better move,’” Kahn said. “I just tracked down who I could get and left it up to the team to do the rest.”

Kawa, who was also on Medford’s sixth-place 3,200-meter team in 2019, made up more ground, getting the Raiders past New Berlin Eisenhower, who slipped to eighth behind Osceola as the final exchanges took place. Kawa’s leg was timed at 2:23.73.

“It felt great,” Kawa said. “I knew I was cruising, but I just kept on going. It was my last 4x8 ever, so I gave it my all.”

Now in sixth place, Richter knew what her job was as the closer and she came through with the team’s fastest leg at 2:20.9. She pulled away from Kettle Moraine Lutheran anchor Taylor Schwalenberg down the stretch to put Medford’s time at 9:47.39, 4.22 seconds ahead of the seventh-place Chargers and 1.56 seconds behind fifth-place Shawano.

“We switched it up from sectionals,” Richter said of taking the anchor role. “I don’t know, coach told me you run better last. I was nervous as heck. I was like, I don’t know that’s a lot of pressure. But it was good. It kept me going.”

Her teammates certainly had faith.

“I said she’s got to get that girl. She’s going to get her,” Fleegel said.

“I think we all got a lot faster,” Richter said. “We each ran our best times.”

“Everyone blew their seed time out of the water,” Kawa said.

Medford cruised by its sectional time of 9:59.12 and made it three medals in a row in the event dating back to 2018. The Raiders have scored in the event in four straight state meets.

“That was definitely our goal, to podium,” Kawa said. “Yes, that was the goal,” Kahn said.

“It’s very exciting,” Kawa added. “In the beginning of the year I never dreamed of us being here right now.”

The three points earned by the team put Medford in a 51st-place tie in the final standings. Freedom (59) and Shorewood (52) took home the gold and silver trophies. Shorewood won the 3,200-meter race in 9:32.92, followed by Freedom (9:40.13), Winneconne (9:43.12) and Osceola (9:45.03).

Kawa, who will join UW-Green Bay’s cross country team in the fall, hoped to end her fine Raider running career by competing for a medal in the 3,200-meter run four hours later. For more than half the race, she was right there in another fast-paced race. Kawa held the fifth spot at the end of laps three through five, but she ran out of gas on the sixth lap and her body gave out and she stepped off the track and collapsed just before completing that lap. She was able to walk away from the track area moments later after receiving aid from the on-track medical staff.

Two Rivers sophomore Mikaela Helling won the race in 11:05.85, followed by Appleton Xavier freshman Lilie Fouts (11:13.79) and St. Croix Central senior Mya Kizer (11:14.73) as all of the top eight runners were significantly faster than they were at their sectionals. Kawa’s sectional time was 11:51.94.

Medford’s 400-meter relay team of Marissa Fronk, Sophie Brost, Jaylin Machon and Bryn Fronk had a different approach to its race on Friday. As the 13th seed in a 16-team race, they felt no pressure and it showed with the season-best time of 51.71 seconds.

“We had adrenaline because it was state and so many people are here watching and stuff,” Marissa Fronk said. “But I think we were just more excited to actually be here and run. We weren’t nervous to take a place.”

“The pressure, I feel, is at sectionals and regionals to keep advancing,” Brost said.

The Raiders were second in their sixteam heat behind University School of Milwaukee (51.64) and ahead of Laconia (51.92), St. Croix Falls (51.97), Big Foot (52.25) and Dodgeville-Mineral Point (52.5). Prescott won the fast heat and the state championship at 49.55 seconds, just ahead of Fox Valley Lutheran (50.13) and La Crosse Logan (50.27).

“It was really fun,” Bryn Fronk said. “You don’t really notice everyone in the stands. You just go in and do it.”

With a few exceptions, these four runners have been Medford’s 4x100 team throughout the spring and improved from a starting time of 53.0 seconds in the first meet. Machon, the squad’s rising freshman, said she quickly got comfortable with the older runners and from there, it was a smooth season.

“It was good. It was fun,” Machon said.

“We’re all fast,” Marissa Fronk said. “We have very good communication when it comes to handoffs. We’re not scared to tell each other, ‘hey this wasn’t good, let’s try that again.’ We don’t take that as, they’re yelling at me. We all know how to take that criticism and put it to good use.”

Marissa Fronk had been on the doorstep of state in her first two seasons. Then after last year’s season cancellation, the senior was nervous she might never got to La Crosse.

“This is what I’ve always wanted,” she said. “Watching at sectionals we were between fourth and fifth and Bryn was our anchor. After we didn’t make it in the 4x2, my hopes were a little pounded down. I’ve always wanted to get here, now as a senior especially. I see her go, and obviously it’s the whole team, but Bryn took that last place at the end and we got to fourth. We did it. I finally get to go to state. It was very exciting.”

Brost is a junior and Bryn Fronk is a sophomore. With Machon back as well, the group needs to find one more sprinter to take another run at returning in 2022.

“It was just such a fun experience,” Brost said. “I’m just glad we got the opportunity honestly. It was just so fun.”