RAIDERS RAPIDLY IMPROVING
GNC TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS
GNC effort builds post-season momentum
The Medford Raiders went into Tuesday’s Great Northern Conference track and field championships in Antigo knowing team titles were out of reach due to a lack of depth, but that certainly didn’t deflate their efforts with a plethora of personal bests and solid placements being achieved.
Senior Joe Sullivan earned conference championships in the boys 1,600and 3,200-meter runs and added points in the 400-meter dash and triple jump in a performance worthy of MVP consideration, though Rhinelander’s Cole Worrall wound up taking Runner of the Year honors by winning three races.
Sophomore Jaylin Machon was Medford’s lone girls champion, taking the pole vault with a personal-best height of 9 feet, 6 inches. She had a near-miss in the 100-meter high hurdles and helped both sprint relay teams attain solid finishes.
Teamwise, the girls did about the best they could do by earning second place with 109 points and finishing ahead of Lakeland (89.33) and Antigo (84). Mosinee upheld their status as the overwhelming favorite with 198.5 points. The boys took fourth with 95 points as Rhinelander successfully defended its title with 164 points, outscoring Lakeland (146) and Northland Pines (121).
“It was a great meet for our athletes,” head coach Shawn Sullivan said. “Lots of PRs and placements.”
The momentum Medford has built the past two weeks has the Raiders excited to see what they can do at Monday’s WIAA Division 2 Tomahawk regional. Field events start at 4 p.m., while running events will get started at 4:45 p.m. Medford will see all of their GNC rivals except Rhinelander, Stratford and Wittenberg-Birnamwood at that meet with the top four finishers in each event advancing to the May 26 sectional at Rice Lake. There, the top four finishers in each event will qualify for the June 3-4 state meet at UW-La Crosse.
The regular season ends today, Thursday, with the GNC JV meet at Raider Field, which starts at 4:30 p.m.
Girls highlights
Medford’s second-place finish in the girls meet included seven award-winning performances and several more that placed in the top five.
Machon emerged the winner in a field of 13 pole vaulters and won the competition by a sizable margin. Lakeland’s Makayla Kulick, Tomahawk’s Ava Dragosh and Rhinelander’s Rivers Eagleson all tied for second at 8 feet. Her previous best was 9 feet a week earlier at Marathon.
Machon had the top preliminary time in the 100-meter high hurdles at 17.71 seconds and got into a very tight race in the final with Antigo’s Jaiden Radtke and Mosinee’s Claire Selenske. She finished in a personal-best 17.27 seconds and beat Radtke by 0.04 seconds, but Selenske get her by 0.04 seconds at the finish line and won the event.
Sophomore Meredith Richter earned two All-GNC awards. The first was a third-place honorable mention spot in the 400-meter dash with her personalbest time of 1:01.14. Teammate Alyssa Brandner got three sixth-place points at 1:05.37, also a personal best. Mosinee’s Kate Fitzgerald won it in 59.62 seconds, just 0.02 seconds ahead of Lakeland’s Grace Kern.
Richter later took second in the 800-meter run, dropping her time to a new best of 2:30.77. Nora Gremban of Northland Pines won the race in a new GNC record time of 2:14.11. Raider Naomi Fleegel dropped her time to 2:51.96 and placed ninth.
Medford got second-team All-GNC spots in two relays. The 400-meter team of Marlee Perrin, Sophie Brost, Brenley Beran and Machon finished in its best time of the spring at 52.08 seconds and fell just 0.26 seconds behind Antigo. The Raiders were 0.02 seconds ahead of Rhinelander. The 1,600-meter team of Brandner, Ella Daniels, Brooke Rudolph and Richter came up just short at the finish line against Lakeland with its improved time of 4:23.78. Lakeland won by 0.57 seconds, while Mosinee was a distant third at 4:33.89.
The 3,200-meter team of Daniels, Fleegel, Ella Dassow and Rudolph opened the meet by taking third in 10:59.35. Tomahawk led from start to finish and won in 10:33.11, while Lakeland was second in 10:54.68. Medford’s 800-meter combination of Beran, Stacy Stolp, Riley Clark and Machon was fourth in 1:57.07, trailing Antigo (1:50.86), Rhinelander (1:51.34) and Mosinee (1:55.43). That was one of many fourths for the Raiders.
Perrin, a freshman, got three of them. Her first came in the high jump at 4-8. She was 2 inches out of the lead and had the same height as third-place jumper Taylor Franzen of Northland Pines. Her next one was in the 100-meter dash. Her final time was 13.25 seconds, putting her 0.2 seconds out of third. Antigo standout Mackenzie Wissbroecker won it in 12.58 seconds. Brost was seventh in 13.76 seconds. Both maintained their spots from the preliminaries, where Raider Lindsey Klapatauskas was 14th in 14.38 seconds.
Perrin and Brost were fourth and eighth in the 200-meter dash final. Official times weren’t posted as of Wednesday morning. Brost qualified sixth at 28.51 seconds and Perrin was the eighth qualifier in 28.9 seconds.
Daniels cut her time significantly and placed fourth in the 1,600-meter run at 5:59.2 and was just 0.71 seconds behind third-place runner Robin Schmidt of Tomahawk. Gremban smashed another record with her time of 5:02. Rudolph ran the 300-meter low hurdles in 54.93 seconds in another race Selenske won in 49.68 seconds. Klapatauskas threw the shot put 29-0.5, not far off her best, and placed fourth. Mosinee’s Brooke Baumann won that competition at 34-9.5 and set a GNC record in the discus at 126-2.
Dassow was the fifth-place finisher in the 3,200-meter run smashing her previous best time by more than 30 seconds at 13:25.37. Gremban won in 11:35.92 but fell short of her 2021 record of 10:59.2. Beran got off a personal-best leap of 14-8 to take fifth in the long jump final, just ahead of Rudolph’s 14-7.25. Rudolph’s jump came in the prelims and had her seeded third in the finals. Hannah Fleegel was 11th at 12-6.5. Brost led Medford in the triple jump with a seventh-place distance of 30-4.75. Klapatauskas set a new best at 29-11.25 to place eighth and Stolp was ninth at 29-5.5.
Tomahawk was fifth in the girls standings with 76.33 points, followed by Rhinelander (68.33) and Northland Pines (67.5).
Boys highlights
Tuesday was a great night for Medford’s two seniors, Sullivan and Jake Seifert, and the Raiders got some solid contributions from others to nearly hit the 100-point mark.
Sullivan found himself in a tight threeman race with Lakeland’s Owen Clark and Sam Gremban of Northland Pines for the first three laps of the 1,600-meter run but he found another gear in the fourth lap and pulled away for the win in 4:30.12, 2.61 seconds ahead of Clark and 3.49 seconds ahead of Gremban. Junior Silas Wipf broke the five-minute barrier for the first time and took sixth at 4:59.83. Not long after that, Sullivan made a rare appearance in the 400-meter dash and took third in 52.61 seconds, just behind Lakeland’s Bo Peterson (51.38) and Jacob Hayes (51.76). Raider freshman Gage Losiewicz lowered his time to 56.28 seconds and placed seventh and junior Lucas Borman shaved his time to 1:00.05 to take 11th.
Sullivan finished his night with a winning time of 10:19.09 in the 3,200-meter run. He held a comfortable 26.2-second margin over Clark in that one, while Vincent Seidel cut nearly 40 seconds from an earlier run this season and took fourth in 10:56.38, just 0.06 seconds behind Kaemyn Heritage of Pines. Sullivan started his day by extending his personal best to 38-11.25 in the triple jump, which was good for fourth place, 2 inches behind thirdplace jumper Kyle Miller of Mosinee. Seidel was 10th at 32-4.
Seifert set new personal records in both throws. In the shot put, he was seeded third after the preliminaries at 42-8 and he extended that distance to 44-8.5 in the final to leapfrog Rhinelander’s Brock Snyder, who actually wound up fourth, and place second. Mosinee’s Walker Beyerl won at 47-3. Seifert set a new record in the discus by a foot at 123-7. That put him third after the prelims. He wound up settling for fourth at that distance. Beyerl won that event too at 144-11. Raider sophomore Logan Kawa was 10th in the discus (101-3) and 11th in the shot put (35-1.25).
Losiewicz earned honorable mention in the pole vault by equaling his best height of 10-6 and placing third. He was 6 inches below Rhinelander’s Kaleb Winter and 18 inches below Hayes.
The 3,200-meter relay team of Zach Rudolph, Seidel, Josh Clark and Wipf was Medford’s other award winner. The Raiders took second in 8:48.57, well ahead of Rhinelander (8:56.76) and well behind Antigo (8:29.9).
The 800-meter team of Itsael Medina, Cory Lindahl, Jose Herrera and Anakin Stokes was fourth in 1:37.39, a seasonbest time, and was 0.19 seconds behind third-place Lakeland. Pines won in 1:34.2. Medina, Evan Paul, Herrera and Stokes were fifth in the 400-meter relay at 48.39 seconds. Rhinelander won in 44.83 seconds. Lindahl, Losiewicz, Rudolph and Herrera took fifth in the 1,600-meter relay at 3:52.91. Lakeland won handily in 3:33.73.
Rudolph led an impressive outing by Medford in the 800-meter run. He improved 18 seconds from an earlier time from this year and took fifth at 2:10.45. Wipf was seventh in 2:10.87, knocking off about five seconds. Josh Clark was ninth in 2:11.54, cutting three seconds.
Stokes was seventh in the 200-meter dash final at 24.49 seconds, just ahead of Lindahl (25.62). Isaac Kautzer was 10th in the prelims at 26.27 seconds. Medina (12.69) was 13th, Kautzer (12.86) was 15th and Paul (13.04) was 17th in the 100-meter dash prelims.
In the field, Herrera set a new best distance of 18-4 to take sixth in the long jump final, just ahead of Paul (18-3). Lindahl was 12th at 16-10.25. Paul tied for ninth by hitting 5-6 in the high jump.
Mosinee (88), Antigo (49) and Tomahawk (27) trailed Medford in the team standings.
Jake Seifert swings through the release of his final preliminary throw in Tuesday’s discus competition. He was fourth at a personal-best 123 feet, 7 inches.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
