Three girls start the season with wins at Wausau West Early Bird

MEDFORD TRACK & FIELD

Meredith Richter, Ella Daniels and Ella Dassow picked up wins and several athletes set solid opening marks for the Medford Raiders at Thursday’s seasonopening track and field meet, the Wausau West Early Bird Indoor Invitational.

The three victories highlighted the girls’ fourth-place finish out of 11 squads in the team standings, which included eight top-five individual placements.

The Raider boys, fielding a highly inexperienced group, placed 10th out of 10 teams with 26 points and was led by a third-place finish from its 1,600-meter relay team.

For all of the Raiders who competed, it was their first-ever high school meet at West’s fieldhouse and, for most, it was their first indoor meet since there was no indoor season a year ago.

Daniels earned Medford’s first win of the year with a time of 6:16.2. She beat Wausau East’s Hailey Valiska by 3.33 seconds.

Richter won the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:07.36. She was just ahead of Wausau West’s Grace Albee (1:07.68) and Newman Catholic’s Mel Severson (1:07.95). Later in the meet, Dassow, a freshman, got her first high-school victory by easily taking the 3,200-meter run over four other entrants in 15:11.84. Gresham-Bowler’s Maddie Haffner was a distant second at 15:56.74.

Sophomore Jaylin Machon had a strong opener, taking second in the 55-meter hurdles and third in the pole vault. She ran the hurdles in 10.16 seconds, putting her right in between West’s Abigail Bushman (9.79) and Skylie Wilke (10.51). Raider sophomore Brenley Beran was 10th in 11.58 seconds. Machon cleared 8 feet, 6 inches to come out on the short end of a tiebreaker atop the pole vault competition with Wausau West’s Chloe Weisenberger and Wausau East’s Allyson Siikarla.

Medford’s 20-lap relay team took second in a race that actually covered just under 3,000 meters. Ella Daniels, Naomi Fleegel, Dassow and Brooke Rudolph finished in 11:06.19, while West’s team won it in 10:45.38. Cadott was a distant third in 11:58.27.

Medford’s four-lap relay team of Alyssa Brandner, Sophie Brost, Kenya Mann and Stacy Stolp got third-place points while taking fourth in a time of 1:32.58. Antigo won it in 1:28.48, while West had two teams that took second (1:29.45) and third (1:29.46).

Brost, the team’s most experienced athlete and one of just three seniors on the opening-day roster, earned two fifthplace finishes in the meet. She was timed at 8.25 seconds in the 55-meter dash, which was won by Antigo’s Claire Musolff and MacKenzie Wissbroecker, who both finished in 7.86 seconds. Brost went 30 feet, 7 inches in the triple jump, while Stolp was eighth at 26-7 and Hannah Fleegel was 10th at 26-6.

Stolp, a freshman, was a solid sixth in the long jump at 13-9, while Hannah Fleegel was two inches behind her in ninth place. Beran was 15th at 13-3 and Rudolph was 18th at 12-9.5.

Sophomore Lindsey Klapatauskas wasn’t far off her highest marks of last season in the shot put, taking seventh with a throw of 25-7. Naomi Fleegel added a ninth-place time of 3:15.34 in her first 800-meter run, while Ashley Hernandez-Camacho was 13th in 3:46.97.

Wausau West comfortably won the girls meet with 156 points, while Wausau East (84) and Antigo (73) were also ahead of Medford’s 72 points. Gresham-Bowler (55), Newman Catholic (46), Kewaunee (42), Cadott (34), Phillips (21.5), Tigerton (7.5) and Crandon (6) rounded out the field.

Boys highlights

In the last race of the night, Medford’s Josh Clark, Gage Losiewicz, Silas Wipf and Anthony Seidel ran the 1,600-meter relay in 4:28.01 to earn third place and the Raiders’ highest finish of the boys meet. The relay team was well ahead of fourthplace Cadott (4:38.23) and trailed Wausau West (4:06.15) and Kewaunee (4:13.34).

Junior Anakin Stokes had a solid first night in the sprints, led by a fourth-place time of 27.15 seconds in the 200-meter dash, won by West’s Jackson Ngo in 26.73 seconds. Raiders Jose Herrera (29.14) and Lucas Borman (29.5) were 14th and 15th.

Stokes earlier took 11th out of 60 sprinters in the 55-meter dash in 7.42 seconds. Medford’s Cory Lindahl was 17th in 7.56 seconds, while Itsael Medina Fuentes (7.62) and Isaac Kautzer (7.63) were 20th and 22nd.

Lindahl, Gatlin Piller, Stokes and Medina Fuentes teamed up to take fifth in the four-lap relay at 1:21.5, though the Raiders got the fourth-place points with two West teams finishing ahead of them. West’s top team won in 1:14.27.

Freshman Evan Paul had a solid debut, taking sixth in the long jump at 17-9.75 and seventh in the high jump by clearing 5-2. Herrera was 10th (17-2.5) in the long jump, while Lindahl (17-1.5) tied for 11th and Vincent Seidel (16-6) was 19th. Anthony Seidel cleared 4-8 to tie for 14th in the high jump and Clark was 13th in the triple jump at 31-8.

Gage Losiewicz was another freshman that got off to a nice start. He was seventh in the 400-meter dash at 1:04.1, while Kautzer (1:08.06) was 11th and Borman (1:11.35) was 13th. Losiewicz was eighth by clearing 9-6 in the pole vault. Jude Stark and Adam Kowalski tied for 10th at 8 feet.

Clark was seventh in the 800-meter run at 2:39.8, while Anthony Seidel was 11th in 2:52.99. Medford’s lone senior athlete in the meet, Jake Seifert, took 10th in the shot put with a toss of 34-8.75. Junior Silas Wipf placed 14th with a time of 5:52.74 in the 1,600-meter run.

Team standings were: 1. Wausau West, 219; 2. Kewaunee, 94; 3. Antigo, 46; 4. Newman Catholic, 45; 5. Wausau East and Crandon, 40; 7. Gresham-Bowler, 35; 8. Cadott, 33; 9. Phillips, 30; 10. Medford, 26.