Medford picks up a handful of wins at Friday’s Auburndale meet

MEDFORD TRACK & FIELD

After losing their home invitational due to weather, the Medford Raiders were back in competition Friday, earning a third-place finish from the girls and fourth from the boys at the 14-team Auburndale Invitational. The girls got victories from sophomores Meredith Richter and Jaylin Machon and enough high placements to score 99 points, allowing them to push Loyal (122) and Stratford (100.7) atop the girls standings. Abbotsford (77.4) and Newman Catholic (62.4) rounded out the top five teams.

Machon equaled her season-best height in the pole vault at 8 feet, 6 inches and held the tiebreaker over Loyal’s Sheila Tellock to win that competition. She added a second-place time of 18.04 in the 100-meter high hurdles, trailing only Sydney Falteisek of Abbotsford (17.86).

Richter’s win came in the 400-meter dash with a season-best time of 1:02.5. She held off Newman freshman Mel Severson by 0.48 seconds. Richter also placed fourth in the 800-meter run at 2:36.96. Chequamegon’s Autumn Michalski won that race in 2:29.47. Raider Naomi Fleegel was 13th in 3:03, improving by 9.65 seconds over her time April 19 in Medford.

The team of Alyssa Brandner, Brooke Rudolph, Riley Clark and Richter led the Raiders’ relay crew by winning the final race of the night, the 1,600-meter relay. The Raiders finished in 4:32.08 and got by Loyal by a margin of 0.94 seconds. The team of Ella Daniels, Fleegel, Ella Dassow and Rudolph earned a second-place finish in the 3,200-meter race. Their time was 11:28.54, 2.03 seconds ahead of Assumption’s third-place team. Stratford won easily in 11:02.81.

Both sprint relay teams took third. The 800-meter quartet of Clark, Brenley Beran, Stacy Stolp and Brandner finished in 1:56.72, just behind Loyal (1:54.13) and Abbotsford (1:56.16) and 0.13 seconds ahead of Assumption. The 400-meter group of Sophie Brost, Marlee Perrin, Lindsey Klapatauskas and Machon hit the finish line in 54.73 seconds, again behind Loyal (52.38) and Abbotsford (53.78) and just ahead of Assumption (55.45).

Perrin tied Loyal’s Aubre Robida for second in the 100-meter dash at 13.8 seconds. They were 0.08 seconds behind Abbotsford’s Chloe Cihlar. Brost got the two seventh-place points at 14.24 seconds. Rudolph captured third place in the 300-meter low hurdles in 54.71, just 1.01 seconds behind winner Evie Bates of Newman Catholic, and she was fourth in the long jump with a season-best effort of 14-3. Beran missed scoring by 3.25 inches with a ninth-place jump of 13-7 and Hannah Fleegel tied for 13th at 12-11.

Brost added five more points with a fourth-place distance of 30-8 in the triple jump, which was her best effort of the spring. Hannah Fleegel was 10th at a season- best 27-4 and Stolp was 14th at 26-0.5. Perrin and Brost teamed up to score seven points in the 200-meter dash. Perrin was fifth at 28.94 seconds, 1.06 seconds behind Severson’s winning time. Brost was right behind Perrin at 29.22 seconds.

Dassow finished seventh in the 3,200-meter run at 14:11.44, while Daniels took seventh in the 1,600-meter race at 6:22.4. Klapatauskas added a 12th-place throw of 27-7 in the shot put.

Chequamegon (55.4), Assumption (49.5), Auburndale (49.2), Neillsville (30.2), Owen-Withee (20), Greenwood (12), Granton (11.2), Columbus Catholic (10) and Spencer (1) rounded out the girls team scoring.

Two relay wins

The boys scored 82.5 points, led by two relay victories.

The 3,200-meter team of Zach Rudolph, Josh Clark, Vincent Seidel and Silas Wipf started the relay success with a winning time of 9:05.08, 4.69 seconds ahead of second-place Stratford. The 800-meter team of Itsael Medina, Evan Paul, Cory Lindahl and Anakin Stokes took its race in 1:39.64, just 0.15 seconds ahead of Chequamegon.

Rudolph, Stokes, Jose Herrera and Gage Losiewicz finished the meet by taking fifth in the 1,600-meter race at 3:56.3. Auburndale won in 3:42.7. Medina, Paul, Lindahl and Herrera were ninth in 52.89 seconds in the 400-meter relay.

Individually, senior Joe Sullivan scored 26 points with a win and two seconds. His victory came late in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 10:13.13 that easily beat runner-up Andrew Scheer of Columbus Catholic (10:31.35). Clark added an eighth-place point at 11:58.94. Earlier, Sullivan finished the 1,600-meter run in 4:38.36 and was clipped by Neillsville’s Taytor Lowry by 1.2 seconds. Wipf got three sixth-place points at 5:11.88.

Sullivan pushed his personal-best distance to 38-4.5 in the triple jump, which was only beaten by Conner Weigel of Stratford (38-10.25). Seidel (33-3.5) was 14th and Clark (31-10.5) was 17th.

Senior Jake Seifert earned a pair of fourths in the throws. His top throw in the discus went 119-3, putting him 42 inches out of third place. Raider Logan Kawa was 11th at 95-8. Seifert’s top throw in the shot put went 39-6, while Kawa got the eighth-place point at 37-5. Mason Roenz of Neillsville won the shot put at 46 feet, while Jesse Fowler of Auburndale was the discus champion at 138-8.

Losiewicz cleared 9-6 to tie his personal best and tie Neillsville’s Derek Zschernitz for fourth in the pole vault. Jude Stark tied for ninth at 8-6. Lindahl entered the high jump for the first time this year and took fifth at 5-2, while Paul tied for ninth at 5 feet. Paul went 16-10.25 to take sixth in the long jump. Herrera was 13th at 15-9.75.

On the track, Vincent Seidel lowered his time by almost three seconds from the indoor season and took sixth in the 800-meter run at 2:16.52. Rudolph took seventh in the 400-meter dash with a new best time of 56.72 seconds. Losiewicz (57.03) was ninth, Lucas Borman (1:02.01) was 15th and Anthony Seidel (1:02.9) was 16th.

Stokes was ninth in the 100-meter dash at 12.53 seconds, while Losiewicz was 10th in the 200-meter dash at 25.77 seconds and Isaac Kautzer was 17th in 26.54 seconds.

Auburndale won the team championship with 106 points, just 1.5 ahead of Neillsville and five more than Stratford. Medford’s 82.5 points put it ahead of Owen-Withee (53), Assumption (47), Newman Catholic (39), Chequamegon and Abbotsford (35), Spencer (33), Columbus Catholic (32), Greenwood (20), Loyal (12) and Granton (1).

Medford will be at Merrill’s annual Otto Bacher Invitational this Friday at 5 p.m., followed by an added meet at Marathon on May 10.