Several personal bests, but points hard to get in Marawood meet

MARAWOOD TRACK & FIELD

With the Marawood Conference returning to a one-division format for Monday’s track and field championships, Rib Lake’s efforts had to be more individually focused.

With more than 15 personal-bests, those efforts during the hot and muggy meet at Marathon High School were successful.

Rib Lake’s girls scored in six events for a total of 22 points, good for 10th in the 12-school meet, while the boys, who were missing a couple of key athletes, scored in three relays and finished 11th with 9 points.

The girls outscored Newman Catholic (21) and Prentice (6) in a meet won by Marathon. The Red Raiders scored 143 points to edge Edgar (125.5) for the title. Chequamegon was a distant third with 84.5 points.

Senior Jolee Gehrke scored nine of those points with a fourth-place finish in the high jump and a fifth-place finish in the 300-meter low hurdles. Gehrke tied her personal-best by clearing 4 feet, 8 inches in the high jump, which was won by Chequamegon’s Kristina Peterson, who cleared 5-1. Marathon’s Laci Hoeksema (5-0) and Abbotsford’s Olivia Hammel (4-9) also finished ahead of Gehrke, who won the tiebreaker for fourth over Elsa Schluter of Phillips.

In the hurdles, Gehrke set a personalbest time of 53.23 seconds and got fifth place by 0.02 seconds over Abbotsford’s Sydney Falteisek. Edgar’s Rachel Brewster won in 48.4 seconds, 0.88 seconds ahead of Montana Albrecht of Athens.

Rib Lake freshman Amber Yanko was entered in the 100-meter dash for the first time this spring and posted a preliminary time of 13.7 seconds, which ranked sixth and put her into the final. There, she lowered her time to 13.6 seconds and placed fifth behind Edgar’s Morgan Schnelle (12.68), Marathon’s Grace Kahon (12.98), Auburndale’s Maddie Krings (13.29) and Marathon’s Lindsey Sparr (13.49). Yanko was 0.01 seconds ahead of Edgar’s Ella Morse.

Freshman Olivia Lopez was 11th in the preliminaries at 14.07 seconds. Lopez scored an individual point by placing eighth in the long jump with a personalbest distance of 13-11.25. Gehrke (29-7.5) and Lopez (27-2.25) both set personal bests in the triple jump while placing 12th and 17th. Gehrke was 13th in the long jump at 13-2.

The 400-meter relay team of Megan Yanko, Lauren Pelnis, Lopez and Amber Yanko put four points on Rib Lake’s tally with a fifth-place time of 56.11 seconds. Auburndale won in 52.84 seconds, followed by Marathon (54.73), Edgar (54.9) and Abbotsford (55.4). The Yankos, Pelnis and Kylee Goodrich got the fifth-place points in the 1,600-meter relay with a time of 4:48.25 that was easily that group’s best time of the spring. They were well ahead of Chequamegon (5:35.56) and behind Phillips (4:29.68), Marathon (4:32.97), Abbotsford (4:33.19) and Edgar (4:35.56).

Pelnis was one spot short of scoring in the shot put, taking ninth with a throw of 28-8. Pelnis was 1.5 inches behind Marathon’s Ashley Gertschen. Emma Winter was 11th at 27-7 and Hannah Schuh started a strong night by taking 12th at a personal-best 27-3. Schuh also got off her best throw in the discus at 76-3, which was good for 10th place. Winter was 12th at 71-4 and Grace Artz set a personal-best distance of 51-7.

Goodrich took ninth in the 1,600-meter run at 6:27.38, just 0.99 seconds behind eighth-place finisher Autumn Richardson of Auburndale. Goodrich was 11th in the 800-meter run at 2:54.32. Megan Yanko (1:17.31) was 12th, Nadia Czahor (1:23.66) was 13th and Julia Dananay was 14th in a personal-best 1:36.84 in the 400-meter dash. Czahor was 16th in the 800 and Dananay was 21st in the 200-meter dash.

Phillips was fourth in the girls team standings with 69 points, followed by Auburndale (68), Athens (49), Abbotsford (43), Stratford (39) and Wisconsin Rapids Assumption (28).

The 400-meter relay team of Damien Peterson, Donovan Sutherland, Ethan Keiser and Dominick Classen was Rib Lake’s highest finisher in the boys meet, placing fourth out of seven teams in 49.87 seconds. The Redmen trailed Auburndale (45.29), Marathon (45.76) and Edgar (45.8) but beat Assumption (50.46), Chequamegon (50.82) and Newman (52.94).

Ben Petersen, Classen, Keiser and Sutherland got two seventh-place points in the 800-meter relay at 1:43.15. Auburndale won that race in 1:34.98. Ryan Buehler, Petersen, Theo Robisch and Sutherland were seventh in the 1,600-meter relay in a time of 4:04.91. Marathon won in 3:38.14.

Buehler was Rib Lake’s highest individual finisher, placing 10th in the 1,600-meter run in a personal-best time of 5:34.89. Robisch was 11th in the triple jump at 33 feet even, while Xavier Johnson was 15th at 27-2. Robisch also took 19th in the long jump, while Peterson was 22nd.

Petersen was 16th in the 200-meter dash in a personal-best 26.5 seconds. Peterson (27.18) and Robisch (28.23) also set new bests while finishing 18th and 20th. Keiser set a new best at 12.69 seconds in the 100-meter dash, good for 17th. Peterson was 18th, lowering his time to 12.91 seconds and Jayden Thums was 24th at 14.24 seconds.

Brandon Heiser set two new personal bests in the throws. He was 20th in the discus at 78-10 and 23rd in the shot put at 28-5. Bud Schreiner was 19th in the discus at 80-1 and 21st in the shot put at 30-4.

Rib Lake finished ahead of Prentice (5). Edgar won the meet with 162.5 points, just ahead of Marathon (156). Auburndale (87.5) was third, followed by Chequamegon (76), Stratford (47), Newman Catholic (38), Athens (36), Assumption (30), Abbotsford (24) and Phillips (22).

The WIAA Division 3 post-season starts Monday with the regional meet, which has been moved from Gilman to Cadott. Field events start the meet at 3 p.m. Racing events start at 4 p.m. The top four finishers in each event will advance to the sectional meet at Cameron on June 17.

Rib Lake’s Ryan Buehler sets his sights on catching Edgar’s Brandon Finck, which he does, during his 10th-place finish in the boys 1,600-meter run at Monday’s Marawood Conference meet.DONALD WATSON/THE STAR NEWS