THE GREAT OUTDOORS
MEDFORD TRACK & FIELD
Boys take Early Bird title; girls not far off
The Medford Raiders celebrated the first outdoor meet of the season with the first boys team victory of 2022 and a runner-up finish for the girls in Tuesday’s eight-team Early Bird Invitational held at Raider Field.
While the temperatures got a bit cool toward the end of the meet, athletes and coaches were happy to take advantage of some bright sunshine and, finally, dry conditions and light winds to post their initial times and distances of the outdoor season as they begin the fourweek rush toward conference meets as well as the WIAA post-season, which will be here quickly on May 23.
“It was definitely nice to be outside,” Medford head coach Shawn Sullivan said. “The athletes performed so well with lots of PRs.This was a big win for the boys team. We’re very proud of all the efforts given because every athlete competed in multiple events. So they had to be not only physically but mentally strong and they stepped up to the challenge.”
The boys were led by two individual wins from senior Joe Sullivan, who also helped the two distance relay teams win their races as they earned 135.5 points to get past Stratford (126) and Northland Pines (124.5). The Raiders also got four individual seconds in the meet and a first and second from their sprint relays.
Sullivan, Zach Rudolph, Silas Wipf and Vincent Seidel started the day’s track events by winning the three-team 3,200-meter relay in 8:49.14. The Raiders beat Bloomer by 3.25 seconds and were well ahead of Great Northern Conference rival Northland Pines (10:30.62). Sullivan, Rudolph, Cory Lindahl and Gage Losiewicz finished the night by winning the seven-team 1,600-meter relay in 3:46.71, good enough to beat Bloomer by 1.77 seconds.
In between, the 800-meter relay team of Jose Herrera, Itsael Medina, Evan Paul and Lindahl finished in 1:40.97 to beat Northland Pines (1:41.61) and Abbotsford (1:51.26) and get 10 first-place points. The 400-meter team of Herrera, Medina, Paul and Anakin Stokes just missed giving Medford a relay sweep, finishing 0.12 seconds behind Bloomer in 49.53 seconds. They were 0.58 seconds ahead of third-place Abbotsford.
Sullivan set a new personal-best in the triple jump at 37 feet, 4.75 inches to finish 3 inches ahead of Jack Gjovick of Northland Pines and earn his first individual win of the day. Seidel got on the board by taking eighth at 32-10.75 and Josh Clark was 11th for Medford at 30-8. Sullivan led wire to wire in the 800-meter run, finishing in 2:06.11, 1.89 seconds ahead of his cousin, Sam Gremban of Northland Pines. Clark added three points by taking sixth at 2:23.36 and Anthony Seidel was 13th in 2:41.05.
Seidel got eight key points in the 3,200-meter run with his second-place time of 11:35.97. He was 9.73 seconds ahead of third-place finisher Kaemyn Heritage of Northland Pines. Stratford freshman Cree DeFoe won comfortably in 11:13.53.
The rest of Medford’s runner-up finishes came in the field. Senior Jake Seifert made his discus debut for the season and threw a personal-best 122-7 to edge Athens standout Aiden Janke (120-8) and trail only Marcus Bohl of Abbotsford (138-10). Seifert added a fourth-place finish in the shot put at 39-6, while teammate Logan Kawa set a personal best at 36-9.75, good for sixth.
Lindahl went 17-10.5 in the long jump, while Herrera was third with a personalbest jump of 17-10 as they finished just behind Gjovick (18-5.75). Paul was sixth for Medford at 16-11.5, while Gatlin Piller added a 12th-place jump of 14-2.25. Paul later pushed Northland Pines junior Emmett Smith in a battle for the day’s high jump championship. Smith hit his last jump at 5-6 to win it as Paul topped out at 5-4. Smith then added a successful jump at 5-8.
Losiewicz tied for sixth in the pole vault by clearing the bar at 8-6.
Back on the track, Stokes placed twice, taking fourth in the 200-meter dash at 24.8 seconds, 1.01 seconds behind winner Ty Falteisek of Abbotsford, and seventh in the 100-meter dash at 12.23 seconds, 0.63 seconds behind Falteisek. Medina was 13th at 12.68 seconds. Losiewicz was sixth (25.95) and Lucas Borman was 14th (27.43) in the 200.
Rudolph made his 400-meter dash debut and did well, taking fourth in 56.82 seconds, while Anthony Seidel (1:03.81), Borman (1:05.43) and Piller (1:05.82) were 11th, 14th and 15th. Wipf took fifth in the 1,600-meter run with his best time so far at 5:13.67. Clark got the eighth-place point at an improved 5:24.16.
Bloomer finished fourth in Tuesday’s team standings with 74 points, followed by Athens (62), Abbotsford (55), Spencer (46) and Loyal (24).
Five wins for girls
While Loyal finished last in the boys standings, the Greyhounds showed impressive depth for a small school in winning the girls meet with 146 points. Medford edged Bloomer 119-114 for second behind five wins and four second-place finishes, while Stratford was fourth with 96 points.
Sophomore Jaylin Machon was responsible for two of Medford’s wins. She started the season in the 100-meter high hurdles right where she left off last year, tying her personal-best time of 17.96 seconds. That handily beat Abbotsford’s Sydney Falteisek (18.31) and Bridgett Pogodzinski (18.43) for the win. Machon finished the night by tying her season-best height of 8-6 in the pole vault, putting her 6 inches higher than runners-up Sheila Tellock and Olivia Nikolai of Loyal.
Freshman Marlee Perrin sprinted to victory in the 100-meter dash with her time of 13.49 seconds, while senior Sophie Brost was third in 13.67 seconds. Loyal’s Aubre Robida was in between them (13.56) and Raider Lindsey Klapatauskas was 0.06 seconds shy of scoring while finishing ninth in 14.63 seconds. Perrin later added a fourth-place time of 28.56 seconds in the 200-meter dash, while Brost was seventh in 29.35 seconds. Bloomer’s Alexa Post won that race in 27.94 seconds.
Sophomore Meredith Richter scored 18 points in her open races. She won the 400-meter dash in 1:02.77 with teammate Alyssa Brandner not far behind in third place at 1:07.73. Post was in between them at 1:03.61 while Raider Ashley Hernandez was 14th in 1:22.3. Richter was a solid second in the 800-meter run, well ahead of Stratford’s Ella Heidmann (2:41.25) and well behind Northland Pines standout Nora Gremban (2:19.36). Naomi Fleegel of Medford was ninth in 3:12.65.
Medford scored 18 points in the distance relays. Brandner, Brooke Rudolph, Clark and Richter handily won the closing 1,600-meter relay in 4:34.61, finishing 5.99 seconds ahead of Loyal. Rudolph, Fleegel, Ella Dassow and Ella Daniels ran the 3,200-meter relay in 11:18.7 to beat third-place Bloomer by over a minute and trail first-place Stratford by 16.35 seconds. The 400-meter team of Brenley Beran, Klapatauskas, Perrin and Machon sprinted to second in 55.21 seconds, 2.07 seconds behind Loyal.
Rudolph took second in her first 300-meter low hurdles race of the spring with a time of 53.46 seconds, 0.76 seconds behind Loyal’s Abrial Kubista. Daniels was fourth in the 3,200-meter run at 13:39.46 and Dassow was sixth in the 1,600-meter race at 6:27.17. Greman won that race by nearly a minute in 5:06.25.
Brost led Medford in the rest of the field events with a third-place distance of 30-3 in the triple jump, which was won by Stratford’s Jaidyn Wright at 35-1.25. Klapatauskas was ninth at 28-1.5, Stacy Stolp was 10th at 26-9.5 and Hannah Fleegel was 12th at 25-6. Beran (13-1) and Rudolph (12-10) got the seventh- and eighthplace points in the long jump, while Hannah Fleegel was 12th at 12-6. Klapatauskas was 11th in the shot put with a toss of 26-6.
Abbotsford took fifth in the team standings with 86.5 points, followed by Northland Pines (53.5), Athens (43) and Spencer (4).
Medford is back at home again this coming Tuesday when it hosts its annual Medford Invitational at 4 p.m.
Medford’s Logan Kawa watches this shot put attempt leave his hand during Tuesday’s competition at Raider Field. Kawa placed sixth with his best throw, 36 feet, 9.75 inches.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Medford’s Riley Clark takes the baton from Brooke Rudolph while head coach Shawn Sullivan watches during the girls 1,600-meter relay at the end of Tuesday’s Early Bird Invitational at Raider Field. Alyssa Brandner, Rudolph, Clark and Meredith Richter won the race in a time of 4:34.61.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
