Falcons clash against conference foes at UWSP
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Abbotsford Falcons track and field team wrapped up the indoor portion of their schedule, competing at the UW-Stout Elite Meet and Point Indoor Distance Carnival at UW-Stevens Point last week before returning to UWSP for the Marawood Conference Indoor Invite on Monday.
Marawood Conference Invite
A trip to UW-Stevens Point for the Marawood Conference Indoor Invite served as a potential barometer for Abbotsford as they competed against the 11 other Marawood programs in their final indoor meet of the season. The boys team took fifth place, finishing with 37.5 team points while the girls squad took ninth after ending the day with 39 points.
Stratford took the top spot in both team competitions, winning the boys with 120.5 points and taking the top spot in the girls with 81 points. Assumption took second in the girls competition with 77 points and Marathon was the runner up for the boys, ending the day with 118.5 points.
Abbotsford’s strength in the field events continued to show on Monday afternoon. Between the two teams, the Falcons secured eight scoring performances in the field events during the meet, getting one in each competition they had athletes in.
Christian Fuentes had the top finish for Abbotsford in Stevens Point, claiming his second long jump victory of the 2025 season. The Abbotsford junior posted a leap of 20 feet, three inches on his final attempt of the day, pushing him past Stratford's Colton Breit by two inches to take the top spot in the event.
Chase Boiler and Marcus VanLuven added two more top-three finishes in the field events for the Falcons. Boiler earned second place in the high jump after reaching a height of five feet, 10 inches. Marathon’s Cael Riesgraf won the event by reaching six feet, but Boiler took the tiebreaker over Stratford’s Xander Curtice and Rib Lake’s Jed Henderson who also reached the five foot, 10 inch mark.
VanLuven grabbed third in the shot put, securing his spot with a throw of 41 feet, 7.5 inches on his final attempt of the day, putting him ahead of Phillips’ Brody Janacek.
Carter Cihlar secured another scoring performance for the boys squad in the pole vault. The sophomore tied for fourth place with Marathon’s Javier Pintor after both cleared a height of 10 feet, six inches on their second attempt at the height.
Some of the girls' best finishes came in the field events as well. Margo Pogodzinski came in as the runner-up in the shot put competition, trailing only Athens’ Sy’Rih Hartwig in the competition. Pogodzinslci only seemed to improve as the event went along, registering her best throw of the day, one measuring 32 feet, two inches, on her fifth attempt. This gave her a comfortable, two foot cushion between herself and third place, Athens’ Delaney Beasley.
Celia Schindler and Lauryn Hams also ended the day with top-five field event results for the Falcons. Schindler earned third place in the triple jump after edging out Newman Catholic’s Breclclyn Linder with a distance of 31 feet, two inches. Meanwhile, Harris took fourth in the long jump with a leap of 15 feet, five inches, only an inch off from the event’s runnerup. Rib Lake’s Maddie Rademacher.
Hazel Flink also scored in the field events for Abbotsford. The junior cleared a height of seven feet, six inches on her final attempt in the pole vault, earning herself seventh-place in the competition.
The girls 4x200-meter relay team had the Falcons’ best result on the track. The team of Chloe Cihlar, Harris, Schindler and Flink narrowly defeated Stratford’s top relay team for second place in the event, finishing a little over a tenth of a
See MARAWOOD MEET/ Page 14
- Chloe Cihlar completes the hand off to Celia Schindler during the pair’s 4x200-meter relay race at the Marawood Conference Indoor Invite held at UW-Stevens Point on Monday afternoon. The two helped the relay team, which also included Lauryn Harris and Hazel Flink, to take second overall in the event. staffphoto/kris o’leary Marawood meet
Continued from page 11
MAKING HIS MOVE - Miguel Bautista-Carreon holds the inside position during a relay event at UW-Stevens Point. staffphoto/kris o’leary
second ahead of the Tigers. Their time of 1:58.26 put them only behind the Edgar Wildcats’ relay, which won with a time of 1:56.73.
Harris picked up her second fourth-place finish of the day in the 200-meter dash, where she defeated Newman Catholic’s Mel Severson by one-tenth of a second by posting a time of 28.60 seconds.
Cihlar also had a scoring performance in the sprints for the Falcons after finishing in seventh place in the 60-meter dash. She finished with a time of 8.71 seconds in the finals. Teammate Reyna Romo took 14th in the event, finishing in 9.20 seconds.
Romo nearly cracked the top-10 in another sprint event, taking 11th in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:13.26.
Esmeralda Altamirano had the girls best finish in the distance events, putting up a time of 3:06.62 to take 15th in the 800-meter run.
Carter Cihlar and Fuentes led the boys’ team in the sprint events. Cihlar had the top boys’ result on the track, grabbing seventh place in the 200-meter dash. His time of 25.36 seconds was just one-hundredth of a second better than Chequamegon’s Will Krause and put him mere tenths of a second out of a top-five finish. Meanwhile, Fuentes was the odd-man out in the 60-meter dash, missing out on the finals by five-hundredths of a second. He ended up taking ninth with a time of 7.50 seconds.
Jack Sheahan put together the boys’ best performance in the distance events, taking 11th in the 3200-meter run with a time of 12:36.38. Preston Belanger followed, putting up a time of 13:24.32 to take 13th.
The Falcons’ best boys relay finish came in the 4x200meter relay, where the team of Fuentes, Boiler, Carter Cihlar and Jovanny Cruz grabbed fifth place in a 16-team field with a time of 1:40.50. Marathon’s top relay narrowly defeated them in the event, finishing less than a tenth of a second before the Falcons.
Point Indoor Distance Carnival
Abbotsford’s distance team made an earlier trip to UWSP last Friday for the Point Indoor Distance Carnival.
Monse Ochoa had the highest placement for the girls squad, taking 60th in the 1600-meter run with a time of 7:08.89. She also had Abbotsford’s second best finish in the 800-meter run, posting a time of 3:16.10 to take 112th in the event.
Esmeralda Altamirano had the Falcons’ best time in the 800-meter ran, taking 105th place with a time of 3:12.80. Alexis Searer had a time of 3:26.08 to take 117th and teammate Emily Gonzalez was right behind her in 118th with a time of 3:26.27. Ana Tzintzun Carino took 124th with a time of 3:47.39 and Daryana Rodriguez placed 127th with a time of 3:53.70.
On the boys side of the competition, Miguel Bautista-Carreron had the best finish, taking 80th in the 800-meter ran with a time of 2:24.19. Preston Belanger followed with a 108th place finish in the event after posting a time of 2:32.10 and Marco Garcia took 163rd with a time of 2:46.80. Gunner Graves was not far behind Garcia with a time of 2:47.40, earning himself 165th, and Kamron Krueger placed 173rd with a time of 2:54.90.
In the 1600-meter race, Jack Sheahan led the Falcons with a time of 5:34.40, earning himself 89th place. Belanger was once again Abbotsford’s second runner, grabbing 110th with a time of 5:54.50. Graves finished in 125th with a time of 6:31.10 and Krueger rounded out the Falcons’ field with a time of 6:39.50, earning himself 127th place.
UW-Stout Elite Meet
The Falcons also traveled to Menomonie last Thursday for the UW-Stout Elite Meet.
Christian Fuentes and Chase Boiler had the top finishes for Abbotsford, both recording sixth place finishes. Boiler grabbed his spot in the high jump while Fuentes picked up his in the long jump.
Boiler was one of eight athletes to clear the height of five feet, 10 inches in the event. After skipping the first height, Boiler jumped in at the five foot, eight inch mark and made it over the bar on his second attempt. The Abbotsford junior then followed it up by clearing the height of five feet, 10 inches, also on his second attempt, but couldn’t quite get over the six foot mark. His performance earned him the tiebreaker over McDonell Central’s Jordan Sikora and Medford’s Evan Paul and gave him his sixth place finish.
Meanwhile, Fuentes had to battle to earn his spot in the long jump. After his first jump of 18 feet, 9.5 inches left him just outside of contention for the finals, Fuentes came through on his final leap of the preliminaries, grabbing the final spot with a jump of 19 feet. This earned him three more attempts, which he took advantage of, putting up his best jump of the day, 19 feet, 3.5 inches on his fifth attempt. This moved him up several spots, pulling him into a tie with Aquinas’s Vincent Bahr for sixth place.
Fuentes also competed in the 55-meter dash on Thursday, taking 19th with a time of 6.88 seconds.
Fellow junior Marcus VanLuven also put together a top-10 performance for the boys squad. He came up just one spot short of reaching the finals in the shot put, where he took 10th place. VanLuven registered his best throw of the day on his second attempt, launching a throw of 42 feet, eight inches. A 15th place finish for Carter Cihlar in the pole vault, PICKING UP SPEED - Lauryn Harris starts to accelerate after receiving the handoff during the 4x400-meter relay. staff photo/kris O’leary
where he reached a height of nine feet, six inches, rounded out the boys team’s field events while the 4x400meter relay team of Boiler, Cihlar, Miguel Bautista-Carreon and Jack Sheahan took 14th place with a time of 3:56.98 in their only other track event.
Lauryn Harris had the best finish for the girls team in Menomonie, just missing out on the top-10 with an 11th place finish in the 200-meter dash. Mere hundredths of a second separated her from the next few athletes, with her next three closest competitors finishing within five hundredths of a second of Harris’s time of 27.96 seconds. Teammate Chloe Cihlar also represented the Falcons in the sprint event, posting a time of 29.31 seconds and taking 34th place.
Margo Pogodzinski had a 13th place finish for the Falcons in the shot put. The Falcons senior jumped up the leaderboard with her final throw of the day, which measured 31 feet, eight inches. She tied with Osceola’s Maddie Newman.
Azul Diaz was the sole Falcons distance runner to compete on Thursday, picking up an 18th place finish in the 1600-meter run and finishing in 30th in the 800-meter ran. After starting near the back of the pack in the second heat of the 1600-meter race, she quickly began to pick up spots in the middle laps before turning on the jets for the final 200-meters, picking up three spots and finishing just two-tenths of a second ahead of Colby’s Annamarie Schmitt with a final time of 5:57.24. She then posted a time of 2:47.48 in the 800-meter run.
The Falcons’ 4x400-meter relay team of Harris, Chloe Cihlar, Celia Schindler and Hazel Flink placed 15th overall with a time of 4:37.26. Schindler also competed in the triple jump, where her best attempt of 30 feet, six inches earned her 22nd place.
