Indoor season capped with big win for the girls

MEDFORD TRACK & FIELD

The Medford girls capped their indoor track and field season by combining solid scoring from just about all areas and turning it into a team championship at Thursday’s Northland Pines Invitational.

The Raiders’ 112 points topped a field of nine teams, including representation from all seven Great Northern Conference programs. Rhinelander was 9.5 points behind the Raiders, while Mosinee (85.5), Tomahawk (72.5) and Antigo (60.5) rounded out the top five.

Lakeland edged Northland Pines 53-52 for sixth place, followed by Laona-Wabeno (35) and Three Lakes (30).

The Raiders got the majority of their points through four event wins and four second-place finishes.

The 3,200-meter relay team of Brooke Rudolph, Ella Daniels, Ella Dassow and Meredith Richter got Medford off to a good start by winning its race in 11:00.97, 3.43 seconds ahead of Lakeland. Tomahawk (11:35.38) and Antigo (12:09.94) were well off the pace. The 1,600-meter team of Alyssa Brandner, Riley Clark, Ella Daniels and Rudolph capped the victory by ending the meet with a second- place time of 4:45.12. Lakeland won that race in 4:39.75, but the Raiders were comfortably ahead of Tomahawk (4:55.17), Rhinelander (4:55.26) and Northland Pines (4:58.93).

Richter’s big night included a win in the 400-meter dash at 1:05.22 and a second- place effort in the 1,600-meter run at 5:56.64. In the 400, Brandner was second behind Richter at 1:08.57 and Clark was 10th in 1:15.15. Pines’ super sophomore Nora Gremban was not going to be caught in the 1,600. She won in 5:05.78.

Medford sophomore Jaylin Machon had another solid night that included a win in the 55-meter hurdles and a runner-up finish in the pole vault. Her hurdles time of 10.18 seconds put her 0.27 seconds ahead of Mosinee’s Malina Carattini and in the top spot in a field of 12 entrants. Machon cleared 8 feet, 6 inches in the pole vault. Kara Sowinski of Three Lakes was the only vaulter to go higher at 9 feet.

Freshman Marlee Perrin put 17 points on the board, highlighted by a win in the high jump. She got over the bar at 4-10, 4 inches ahead of the next two jumpers, Callie Hoerchler of Rhinelander and Myla Volk of Laona-Wabeno. Perrin added a fourth-place time of 29.67 seconds in the 200-meter dash and a seventh-place time of 8.17 seconds in the 55-meter dash.

Senior Sophie Brost took fifth in the 200 (29.79) and sixth in the 55 (8.16), while Raider Lindsey Klapatauskas was 15th in the 55 (8.6) and Clark was 17th in the 200 (32.86). Antigo sophomore MacKenzie Wissbroecker won the 55 in 7.69 seconds and Mosinee’s Kate Fitzgerald took the 200 in 27.89 seconds.

Dassow and Daniels added some distance points. Dassow was fourth in the 3,200-meter run at 14:46.12 in a race won by Gremban in 11:29.11. Daniels took sixth in the 800-meter run at 2:55.07. Gremban won that too in 2:21.72.

The team of Brost, Brenley Beran, Stacy Stolp and Perrin added a fourth-place finish in the 800-meter relay at 2:00.57, good enough to beat Lakeland (2:03.83), Northland Pines (2:06.35) and Tomahawk (2:06.55). Mosinee won it in 1:53.84, followed by Rhinelander (1:59.05) and Antigo (2:00.13). Also on the track, Rudolph earned a fifth-place finish in the 200-meter hurdles in 34.73 seconds, just 0.83 seconds behind Carattini, who won in 33.9 seconds.

In other field events, Brost got the fourth-place points in the triple jump by going 29-8.5, while Klapatauskas (27-4.5) and Stolp (26-1) were 12th and 14th. Klapatauskas got three sixth-place points in the shot put with a toss of 27-2, while Cailyn Venzke (23-1) and Makayla Motte (22-5.5) were 15th and 16th. Rudolph tacked on one more point by taking eighth in the long jump at 12-10. Stolp was 14th at 10-8.

Medford added 18 JV points to place fifth out of seven girls teams. Beran was third in the 55-meter dash at 8.43 seconds, while Myah Smith was 10th in 9.67 seconds. Smith added secondplace points in the long jump at 11-6.5. Letizi Baldi (35.75) and Ashley Hernandez (36.29) were sixth and eighth in the 200-meter dash.

Boys finish 4th

Medford’s boys got a relay win, an individual win from Joe Sullivan and three second-place finishes while taking fourth in a tightly-contested boys meet.

Lakeland nipped Rhinelander 112-110 to win the meet, while Northland Pines edged the Raiders 86-85 for third and Antigo wasn’t far behind with 80 points. Mosinee (51), Three Lakes (39), Tomahawk (29) and Laona-Wabeno (10) were well off the pace.

The relay win came early in the 3,200-meter race. The team of Sullivan, Vincent Seidel, Silas Wipf and Zach Rudolph finished in 9:12.99 and beat runnerup Antigo by 8.69 seconds. Rhinelander (9:29.01) was a distant third.

The 800-meter and 1,600-meter teams both took second in their races. Itsael Medina, Cory Lindahl, Jose Herrera and Anakin Stokes posted an 800 time of 1:44.24, which put them just 0.25 seconds behind Lakeland, 0.89 seconds ahead of Rhinelander and 1.8 seconds ahead of Mosinee. Sullivan, Lindahl, Rudolph and Gage Losiewicz finished the meet with a time of 3:57.87 in the 1,600-meter race that put them 6.98 seconds behind Lakeland but 6.17 seconds ahead of Rhinelander.

Sullivan’s win came in the 1,600-meter run with a time of 4:42.3. He won a sprint to the finish with Lakeland’s Owen Clark by 0.51 seconds. Wipf fell one spot short of scoring by taking ninth in 5:23.92 and Josh Clark was 13th in 5:37.55.

Jake Seifert came up 2.5 inches shy of winning the shot put competition with his throw of 41-5. Mosinee’s Walker Beyerl won it. Seifert was 23 inches ahead of third-place finisher Desmond Young of Lakeland. Raider Logan Kawa was 11th at 35-4 and Will Haavisto was 17th at 30-9.

Sullivan tacked on six more points with a third-place distance of 37-2 in the triple jump, while Seidel (34-1) and Clark (31-0) got the fifth- and sixth-place points.

Back on the track, Rudolph and Seidel gave Medford nine points by taking third and fourth in the 800-meter run at 2:17.5 and 2:19.71. Clark was 10th at 2:25.76. Sam Gremban of Northland Pines won in 2:10.71, just ahead of Antigo’s Isaac Kramer (2:11.93).

Stokes sprinted to third in the 200-meter dash at 25.45 seconds. He was behind Rhinelander’s Caleb Olcikas (24.53) and Antigo’s Wes Ebel (24.93) Raider Lucas Borman had his best time of the spring at 27.21 seconds, which was good for 12th and Evan Paul was 16th at 27.5 seconds. Stokes also was 11th in 55-meter dash at 7.33 seconds, Herrera (7.5) was 14th and Medina (7.51) was 15th.

Losiewicz got four points with a fifthplace time of 58.83 seconds in the 400-meter dash, which was won by Lakeland’s Bo Peterson in 54.83 seconds. Borman (1:05.11) and Gatlin Piller (1:05.41) were 10th and 12th. Piller improved by 5.5 seconds over his time at Wausau West two days earlier.

Jude Stark was fifth in the pole vault at 8 feet. Herrera (16-0) and Paul (15-11) were seventh and eighth in the long jump.

In JV competition, Piller won the long jump at a season-best 15-6, while Stark got a point by taking eighth in the shot put at a season-best 28-3.5.

The Raiders hope to start outdoor competition April 19 when they are scheduled to host their annual Early Bird Invitational at 4:15 p.m.

Left: Medford’s Joe Sullivan holds the lead during his leg of the 3,200-meter relay at Thursday’s Northland Pines Indoor Invitational. The Raiders won the race by 8.69 seconds over Antigo. Right: Raider Jaylin Machon begins her approach on this pole vault attempt. She placed second by clearing 8 feet, 6 inches.DOUG ETTEN/VILAS COUNTY NEWS REVIEW