Youth highlighted when Medford, Rib Lake girls open at Marshfield

MARSHFIELD GIRLS INDOOR INVITE

Jaylin Machon and Lindsay Kahn were event winners to lead the Medford Raiders, while Olivia Lopez placed in three individual events to pace Rib Lake at Thursday’s season-opening Marshfield Tiger Indoor Girls Invitational.

Youth was certainly the theme locally for the meet with Rib Lake debuting a team loaded with freshmen and Medford leaning toward a younger lineup in this meet as well.

The Raiders scored 31 points to place eighth out of 18 teams, while Rib Lake was 13th with 15.5 points. Marshfield easily won the meet with 144 points, while Colby (48.5), Marshfield B (45), Wittenberg- Birnamwood (45), Abbotsford (42.5), Marshfield C (41) and Stevens Point (37.5) rounded out the top seven.

Kahn was one of those youngsters who took advantage of her chance to shine. The freshman spent much of the mile run’s fast heat battling Colby’s MaKenna Herrmann and Marshfield’s Carolina Sullenger in front of the pack before pulling away in the last couple laps to win the race in 6:14.63. Herrmann wound up 10.8 seconds behind and Sullenger was third in 6:26.56. Rib Lake’s Anna Martin was 12th at 7:35.9.

Machon was one of Medford’s veterans who did fill multiple roles in Thursday’s meet. The junior started her season by winning the pole vault competition at a height of 9 feet, 6 inches. Marshfield’s Casey Dasler was the runner-up, falling out of the competition after clearing 9 feet. Raider Lillie Gleichauf got a successful vault at 6 feet.

Machon added a fifth-place finish in the 60-yard hurdles with a time of 10.06 seconds. She was 0.01 seconds behind fourth-place hurdler Ashley Grancorvitz of Marshfield and 0.54 seconds behind winner Sydney Falteisek of Abbotsford. Raider Adalyn Dittrich was 16th in 11.66 seconds.

Rib Lake’s Lopez, a junior, had a rough start to the meet when she scratched on all three of her long jump tries and her first triple jump attempt. But once she got a good jump in the triple jump, it earned second-place at 30 feet, 11 inches. She edged Marshfield’s Kaci Abney by 0.75 inches for that spot and was 8.5 inches behind winner Katlyn Schreiner of Athens. Medford’s Stacy Stolp was 14th at 26-1.5.

On the track, Lopez ran to fifth place in the 220-yard dash at 29.96 seconds, while freshman teammate Emma Tlusty was 11th at 31.78 seconds. Lopez added 1.5 points by tying Colby’s Jazmyn Heeg for seventh place in the 60-yard dash at 7.97 seconds. Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s Reese Rogowski won in 7.31 seconds and she won the 220-yard dash in 27.35 seconds.

Medford senior Bryn Fronk made her return after missing last year due to injury and placed 10th in 8.02 seconds in the 60-yard dash, while Raider Lindsey Klapatauskas was 16th in 8.18 seconds and Tlusty tied for 20th in 8.43 seconds.

Medford sophomore Ella Dassow put three points on the board with her sixth-place time of 2:58.15 in the 880-yard run, which was won by Pittville’s Reese Grimm in 2:45.97. Martin was 19th for Rib Lake at 3:29.39. Raider freshman Aliyah Pilgrim added two points with a seventhplace time of 1:11.25 in the 440-yard dash. Gleichauf just missed scoring, placing ninth in 1:12.76, 0.61 seconds behind eighth-place runner Allison Linke of Wittenberg-Birnamwood. Rogowski won her third race of the day in 1:03.05.

Each local team had one scoring relay team.

Medford’s eight-lap team of Amy Espinoza, Ashley Hernandez, Alexis Zuleger and Brooke Rudolph took seventh out of eight teams in 3:36.16. Marshfield had the race’s top two teams that finished in 3:06.74 and 3:12.69. Rib Lake’s team of Isabelle Gumz, Hadassah Nelson, Tlusty and Madison Grzanna finished 10th in the four-lap relay, but with five Marshfield teams ahead of them, the Redmen were credited with the seventh-place points thanks to a time of 1:33.85. Marshfield’s A team won in 1:25.54, 0.84 seconds ahead of Abbotsford. Medford’s young group of Autumn Cooley, Pilgrim, Riley Clark and Zuleger was 17th in 1:47.14.

Rudolph and Klapatauskas finished just outside of scoring range for Medford in the shot put, taking ninth and 10th with throws of 28-10 and 27-4.5. Gumz was 14th (26-4.25) and Tessa Krause (25-4.5) tied for 18th for Rib Lake, while Rachel Wesle was 15th (26-2) for Medford.

Medford’s Brenley Beran went 13 feet to place 11th in the long jump, while Stolp was 15th at 12-1.75. Cooley tied for 11th in the high jump by clearing the bar at 4-2. Rib Lake’s Camryn Glenzer and Tlusty were 13th and 14th at 4-2, while Gumz was 15th at 4 feet.