Many personal bests as momentum builds for competitive stretch run

MEDFORD TRACK & FIELD

Meets have been few and far between so far for the Medford track and field squads, but Tuesday’s home invitational was the start of a major shift in scheduling for the Raiders, who will soon hit crunch time, ready or not.

Under nearly summer-like conditions at Raider Field, Medford started the final push to the regular with a second-place finish out of seven teams in the girls meet and a third-place finish in the boys meet. There weren’t a ton of individual victories, but head coach Shawn Sullivan and her coaching staff used the meet to do some experimenting and will get another chance to do that tonight, Thursday, at Antigo before the Great Northern Conference Championships come to Medford on Tuesday.

“We called this our speed day,” Medford head coach Shawn Sullivan said of Tuesday’s meet. “We had some athletes doing some different events than they usually do. We did experiment, had some athletes try some things a little different. For some, we wanted to get them in multiple events and get them used to doing that for conference.”

The girls scored 134 points to finish 13.5 points behind Wittenberg-Birnamwood, a team that will return to Medford for the June 14 WIAA Division 2 regional meet. Those two teams separated themselves from a pack that included Stanley-Boyd (96), Northland Pines (95), Rhinelander (85.5), Auburndale (78) and Stratford (51).

“We saw a lot of good things,” Sullivan said. “It was a battle with Wittenberg-Birnamwood during the whole meet.”

Medford got two relay wins and several second-place finishes on the track.

The first win came in the 800-meter relay where Marissa Fronk, Karli Higgins, Sophie Brost and Jaylin Machon got the lead early and weren’t seriously threatened while posting at time of 1:52.28. Auburndale was 2.35 seconds behind, while Northland Pines was 5.22 seconds off the pace.

Meredith Richter, Bryn Fronk, Higgins and Alicia Kawa finished the meet with a decisive win in the 1,600-meter relay. Their time was 4:19.27, 3.98 seconds ahead of Auburndale and 11.28 seconds ahead of Wittenberg-Birnamwood. It was Medford’s best time of the year. The 3,200-meter relay team of Alexis Fleegel, Jennifer Kahn, Brooke Rudolph and Ella Daniels came out on the short end of a back-and-forth battle with Auburndale. The Raiders had a solid time of 10:29.56 that left them 6.1 seconds behind the Eagles but almost a full minute ahead of third-place Wittenberg-Birnamwood.

A new 400-meter relay combination of Marissa Fronk, Brost, Lindsey Klapatauskas and Brenley Beran took third in 53.19 seconds behind Rhinelander (52.53) and Auburndale (53.17).

Individually, Bryn Fronk drew some attention with two runner-up finishes and personal-best times. The sophomore posted a time of 26.44 seconds in the 200-meter dash and fell just 0.01 seconds behind Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s Reese Rogowski. Richter got a rare chance to run a short sprint and took fifth in 27.92 seconds, while Alyssa Brandner (30.12) was 11th. Fronk ran the 400-meter dash in 1:00.26 and again was just behind Rogowski (59.27) while coming within striking distance of Medford’s school record (59.9). Brandner took fifth in a personal- best 1:06.82. Kawa earned a pair of seconds behind freshman phenom Nora Gremban of Northland Pines. With their best times, Kawa (5:32.01) and Richter (5:36.49) were second and third in the 1,600-meter run behind Gremban (5:03.84). Gremban won the 800-meter run in 2:22.28, 7.18 seconds ahead of Kawa, while Fleegel was fourth in 2:35.29 and Daniels was ninth at 2:56.35. Kahn took second in the 3,200-meter run at 13:05.46, well behind Gremban’s superb time of 11:31.18.

“Alexis and Jennifer have just been phenomenal in their 800s, mile and twomile races,” Sullivan said.

Marissa Fronk took third in a competitive 100-meter dash at 13.28 seconds, just behind Rogowski (12.93) and Stanley-Boyd’s Jade Fredrickson (13.04). Sophie Brost got two seventh-place points at 13.62 seconds and Klapatauskas was 11th at 14.35 seconds.

Machon, a freshman, had a nice debut in the 100-meter high hurdles, taking third in 18.84 seconds, while Beran was seventh at 20.59 seconds. Rudolph lowered her time to 54.56 seconds in the 300-meter low hurdles, also good for third. Machon also cleared 8 feet in the pole vault to tie her season best and place third, 6 inches behind winner Kailyn Schillinger of Stanley-Boyd. Daniels cleared 7-6 to set a personal best and take fifth.

Also in the field, Brost was fourth in the triple jump at a season-best 30-3, while Hannah Fleegel was eighth at 25-2 and Beran was a half-inch behind her. Higgins took seventh in the long jump at 14-9, Rudolph was 10th at 14-0.75 in her first try in the event this spring, Klapatauskas (12-7.5) was 13th and Hannah Fleegel (12-6.5) was 15th. Klapatauskas got the eighth-place point in the shot put at 25-6.

Boys take third

Ty Baker and Joe Sullivan were winners for the boys, who scored 103 points to trail Stanley-Boyd (159) and Rhinelander (133) in the team standings. The Raiders finished comfortably ahead of Northland Pines (85), Auburndale (78), Stratford (64) and Wittenberg-Birnamwood (45).

Baker hit a new personal-best distance while winning the long jump at 19-11.75, an inch better than Jack Gjovick of Northland Pines and 1.75 inches ahead of Auburndale’s Terrance Cottrell-Roberson. Baker added a distance of 40-4 in the triple jump, just 1.5 inches off his season best and good for second place behind the 42-foot jump from Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s Simon Schairer. Carson Church got the seventh-place points with his personal-best jump of 36-2. Vincent Seidel triple jumped for the first time and took 11th at 33-2.

“Ty is right there,” Shawn Sullivan said. “It’s competition time now at the end of the season and he’s right where he needs to be.”

Sullivan won the 800-meter run in 2:04.52, 2.45 seconds ahead of Schairer, while Raider senior Owen Wipf was fourth at 2:13.54. Sullivan tied his seasonbest height in the high jump by clearing 5-8, good for fourth, 2 inches behind winner Jaden Beske of Rhinelander.

Sullivan led off for the boys 3,200-meter relay team that included Seidel, Josh Clark and Wipf and took second in 9:07.87, 4.21 seconds behind Stratford. Wipf nearly took the lead in his second lap, but the Tigers’ last runner had enough in the tank to hold him off. Church posted his best time so far in the 400-meter dash, 54.11 seconds, which put him in second place, 1.29 seconds behind Stanley-Boyd’s Cooper Nichols. Clark added a 12th-place time of 1:02.85. Senior Tyler Kapitz sprinted to third place in the 200-meter dash in 23.86 seconds, 0.27 seconds behind winner Jacques Tulowitzky of Rhinelander. Church was 10th in 24.8 seconds.

Another senior, Jack Tlusty, took third in the 3,200-meter run at a personal- best 12:24.16, just 1.04 seconds behind runner-up Zachary Haas of Stanley-Boyd. Haas’ teammate Reece Trunkel won in 11:59.38. Seidel was sixth in the 1,600-meter run at a season-best 5:15.54.

Sophomore Lucas Borman had a strong effort in the 100-meter dash, taking sixth with his best time of 12.84 seconds. Cory Lindahl was fifth in the 110-meter high hurdles at 21.03 seconds, while Borman was seventh in 21.69 seconds. Both of those times were season bests.

Cole Dassow, Kapitz, Colton Surek and Lindahl teamed up to take second in the 800-meter relay with their time of 1:40.62. They were 5.1 seconds behind a strong Auburndale squad and 4.83 seconds ahead of third-place Northland Pines. Dassow, Kapitz, Logan Kawa and Lindahl were fourth in the 400-meter relay at 47.59 seconds. Auburndale won in 45.81 seconds. Seidel and Jude Stark joined Church and Sullivan to place fifth in the 1,600-meter relay at 3:56.45. Rhinelander won that race in 3:41.33.

Jake Seifert was fifth in the shot put at 36-9. Stark cleared a personal-best 8 feet to place eighth in the pole vault, while Adam Kowalski tied for 11th at 6 feet. Wipf (17-1.25) was 11th, Kapitz (17-0.5) was 13th and Lindahl (17-0.25) was 14th in the long jump.

Last Thursday’s Antigo Invitational was postponed to today, Thursday, and will start at 4 p.m. Along with Tuesday’s GNC championships, Medford will host the annual GNC JV meet on June 10, also at 4 p.m.

“Actually it has been kind of nice having one meet per week,” Sullivan said. “A lot of teams have been doing that and it’s allowed us to get some good training in. But things are going to start happening quickly now.

“We have a great team,” she added. “Everyone really supports each other. We had people stepping in to help fill relay at the end, which was good to see.”

Medford’s Tyler Kapitz accelerates out of the exchange zone and tries to get ahead of Rhinelander’s next runner during Tuesday’s 400-meter relay. Kapitz had just received the baton from Cole Dassow. The Raiders were fourth in this race.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS