Hopperdietzel sets record as Hornets’ season opens
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Colby Hornets track and field team began their season with a flurry of indoor track meets over the past week. Bouncing from Marshfield to Wausau and then to UWStout in Menomonie, the Hornets had ample opportunities to compete as they look to find their stride early in the year. The meets have given way to several impressive performances by the Colby squad, including the breaking of a nearly five-decades-old school record.
Northern Badger Classic
The Hornets traveled to UW-Stout on Saturday to take on schools from across northern and central Wisconsin. The boys team took seventh out of 31 schools, putting up a final team score of 21 points while the girls team placed 19th with 13.
The field events carried the Hornets on Saturday. Nineteen of the boys’ points came in such events, including a school-record-setting performance by Seth Hopperdietzel.
After getting close to breaking the pole vault record last season, Hopperdietzel set a new standard for Colby in his second outing of 2024. Marty Schjoneman held the prior mark to beat for nearly fifty years. Schjoneman cleared a height of 13 feet, three inches, a vault that has been at the top of the Hornets’ record books since 1978.
Hopperdietzel nearly surpassed that record last year at the UW-Stout Elite Meet, where he cleared 13 feet in the event. About one year later, the Colby senior broke the long-standing mark in the same building, reaching 13 feet, six inches for the first time in Hornets’ history on Saturday. In a highly competitive atmosphere, the impressive performance netted him second place, only behind Athens’ Ryan Peel, who cleared 14 feet.
On top of the record-setting pole vault, the Hornet boys team also netted points in the long jump and the triple jump field events. Rolyn Hopperdietzel took third in the long jump and Xander Buchanan added an eighth place finish, the pair posting leaps of 18 feet, five inches and 17 feet, nine-and-a-quarter inches respectively. Rolyn Hopperdieztel also finished fifth in the triple jump with a final mark of 38 feet, five inches while Buchanan’s longest jump measured 35 feet, four-and-a-half inches, earning him 14th in the event. Erik Martinez narrowly missed out on scoring in the shot put, taking ninth place with a throw of 39 feet, eight-and-a-half inches. Caden Kleparski nearly had another field event top-ten finish, tying for 11th in the high jump by reaching a height of five feet, three inches. On the track, Max Adams had the best individual running event finish for the Hornets. The senior notched a point for his team by grabbing eighth in the 1600-meter run, posting a time of 5:02.53. He also finished 18th in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:23.99.
Tucker Hayes had a solid finish in the 400-meter dash, taking 12th place with a time of 58.65 and the 4x400-meter relay team added an eighth place finish with a time of 4:01.08.
Daelyn Rieck, another school record holder for Colby, picked up her second win of the season in the shot put to lead the Hornet girls team on Saturday. Her furthest throw of 38 feet, one-and-a-half inches was nearly two feet further than her closest competitor.
Distance runners Casey Reynolds and Annamarie Schmitt also scored for Colby in Menomonie. Reynolds’ time of 6:02.49 earned her seventh place in the 1600-meter run while Schmitt put up a time of 13:35.00 in the 3200-meter run to take eighth place.
Veronica Mateer came up just short of adding to the Hornets’ total but still finished with a solid ninth place finish in the triple jump, where her longest jump measured 29 feet, oneand- a-half inches.
One-thousandth of a second separated Pearl Feiten and Abbotsford’s Celia Schindler in the 800-meter run, where she just edged out her competitor with a time of 2:44.456. Jazmyn Heeg also had her place in the 55-meter dash decided by mere thousandths of a second, where her time of 8.160 seconds netted her 20th in a deep field.
Wausau West Boys Invitational
The Colby boys took fifth place out of nine teams at the indoor meet held at Wausau West last Thursday. The Hornets narrowly edged out the Wausau West Gold team, finishing with 66 points to theWarriors 62.
Seth Hopperdietzel dominated in the pole vault, easily pacing the field in the event. The senior cleared 12 feet, six inches during his first appearance in the pole vault this season, a mark that was two feet higher than second place Brock Gasper of Newman Catholic and third place Kaemyn Heritage of Northland Pines. Seth Hopperdietzel also narrowly missed out on the finals for the 55-meter dash. Two one-hundredths of a second separated him and the seventh place spot, which would have earned him another shot to improve his standing. He finished ninth with a time of 7.33 seconds.
While the senior was the only Hornet to win an event on Thursday, Colby picked up a pair of runner-up spots. Junior Tucker Hayes claimed second place in the 1600-meter run, finishing one second ahead of Northland Pines’ Nick Fluegel with a time of 5:42.05.
Rolyn Hopperdietzel also grabbed a second place finish for Colby. His leap of 38 feet in the triple jump put him behind only fellow freshman Korz Loken from Iola- Scandanvia, who won the event with a jump of 38 feet, eight-anda- half inches. The Hornet freshman took eighth in the long jump as well, with a mark of 15 feet, nine-and-a-half inches and Hayes placed tenth with a jump of 16 feet, six inches. Max Adams, Xander Buchanan and two Hornet relays placed third. Adams posted a time of 2:24.06 in the 800-meter run while Buchanan cleared a height of five feet, two inches in the high jump to provide some solid points for their squad. The Colby teams put up times of 1:22.54 and 9:12.00 in the 4x160-meter and 4x800-meter relays respectively. Erik Martinez finished with a distance of 41 feet, six-and-a-half inches in the shot put, which garnered him a fourth place finish and Caden Kleparski also added a fourth by posting a time of 27.42 in the 200-meter dash. Kleparski also tied for sixth in the high jump with a height of five feet.
Marshfield Tiger Invites
The Colby Hornet teams opened their seasons with trips to Marshfield last Tuesday and Thursday. Both the boys and girls teams finished with the exact same team points (27)
See COLBY TRACK & FIELD/ Page 13
NEW RECORD HOLDER - Seth Hopperdietzel claimed first place at the Wausau West meet pictured above. The senior then set a new school record a few days later at UW-Stout.
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STARTING THE SEASON STRONG - Edynn Hinker, left, and Tucker Hayes, right, had solid performances at their respective meets in Marshfield. Hinker took 13th in the shot put while Hayes was part of the 4x880-yard relay that took fourth.
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and came in seventh overall in their respective competitions.
The boys were up first, taking on 13 other teams on Tuesday night. They were one point short of sixth place Amherst while just beating out Stratford’s 26 points.
Max Adams had the highest finish for Colby, coming in third place in the 880-yard run. Owen-Withee’s Mason Gay won the event with a time of 2:14.77 and Rib Lake’s Jack Regier finished just a second ahead of the Hornet senior. Adams finished with a final time of 2:34.79.
Fellow seniors Seth Hopperdietzel, Erik Martinez and Caden Kleparski also had top-ten finishes. Hopperdietzel had Colby’s best short distance result, taking sixth place in the 60-yard dash by putting up a time of 6.93 seconds. Martinez added a seventh place finish in the shot put, recording a throw of 40 feet, three inches and Kleparski took eighth in the high jump by clearing the bar at a height of five feet, four inches. Freshmen Xander Buchanan and Rolyn Hopperdietzel also had top-ten finishes. Buchanan tied with Kleparski in the high jump, also finishing at the five foot, four inch mark and taking eighth place. He added a ninth place finish in the long jump, his furthest leap measuring 17 feet, eight inches. Hopperdietzel also had a solid performance in the long jump. He took seventh place with a jump of 17 feet, 11 inches. Moises Fuentes
narrowly missed out on another individual top-ten finish for the Hornets, tying with Abbotsford’s Fernando Perez for 11th place in the shot put with a throw of 34 feet.
The Colby 4x160-yard relay took second place out of nine teams, posting a time of 1:17.15, narrowly defeating the Amherst squad by six-tenths of a second. The 4x880-yard relay team also placed well, taking fourth with a time of 10:12.40.
During the girls competition held on Thursday, Daelyn Rieck outdueled Abbotsford’s Margo Pogodzinksi for the top
See COLBY TRACK & FIELD/ Page 16
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spot in the shot put. Rieck finished the evening with a final distance of 37 feet, four inches, eight inches further than Pogodzinski’s best throw of 36 feet, eight inches. Freshman Edynn Hinker also had a solid performance in the throwing event for the Hornets, finishing in 13th place with a throw of 27 feet, one-quarter inch.
In long distance events, Pearl Feiten and Casey Reynolds had the top performances of the night for the Hornets. Both came in the 880-yard run, with Feiten taking sixth by finishing in 2:49.80 and Reynolds grabbing eighth place by posting a time of 2:54.59.
Jazmyn Heeg had Colby’s best short distance finish, grabbing seventh place in the 60-yard dash. The senior came in just behind D.C. Everest’s Adrianna Ward, finishing with a time of 7.88 seconds.
Veronica Mateer and Ali Adams narrowly missed out on top-ten finishes, with Mateer taking 12th in the triple jump with a distance of 29 feet, two-and-a-quarter inches and Adams taking 12th in the mile run with a time of 7:12.82.
