Tallier makes history with 4 wins, Pirates 4th in ECC meet

EASTERN CLOVERBELT T&F

Gilman senior Gracie Tallier has been making history for three years in the Pirates’ track and field program and she made more Tuesday with the rare achievement of winning four individual championships in an Eastern Cloverbelt Conference meet.

Tallier won the 100-, 200-meter and 400-meter dashes while adding the long jump title as well to lead the Pirates to fourth-place team finish in Tuesday’s girls meet.

Bailey Angell won the shot put championship and was runner-up in the discus, while Claire Drier added second-place finishes in both hurdles races as Gilman scored 82 points, an impressive total considering they had just six athletes competing. The Pirates nearly caught Neillsville, who took third with 89 points. Loyal, as expected, won the team title with 192.5 points, while 2022 champion Colby was second with 157.

“We don’t keep records on the number of individual titles in a given year but I would be willing to bet quite a bit on the fact that it has never happened before, at least not four individual events,” Gilman head coach Mike Gingras said. “This is definitely a first for a Gilman girl. She also set the conference record in the 100-meter dash. A great night for her.

“Claire had a great night in both hurdle races as well and Bailey took the shot put title,” Gingras added. “Overall, a great job by just 12 kids competing for us.”

Tallier’s first championship of the day came in the long jump when she went 16 feet, 2.25 inches with a preliminary jump. She actually had a jump that went considerably longer but fouled. Still, her winning jump was 2 inches ahead of a finals jump by Owen-Withee’s Kendall Weiler that bumped Drier to third place. Drier and Weiler were tied for second through the preliminaries at 15-1. Drier improved by 1.5 inches in the finals, but Weiler got off a jump of 16-0.25 to claim second. Kyra Rabuck added a 14-place jump of 12-0.75 for Gilman, which was the best jump of her freshman season.

Next on Tallier’s list was the 100-meter dash. She had the top preliminary time of 12.79 seconds and lowered it by another tenth to 12.69 seconds in the final to beat Loyal’s Addysen Wolf by 0.31 seconds. The Greyhounds also had the third- and fourth-place finishers in Aubre Robida (13.27) and Leah Scherer (13.29). Gilman’s Jaylen Copenhaver (14.36) was 11th and Rabuck (15.08) tied for 15th in the prelims.

Then came the 400-meter dash, where Tallier lowered her school record to 1:02.1 last week. On Tuesday, she wasn’t quite that quick, finishing in 1:02.21, but that was enough to beat Wolf by 0.55 seconds and Weiler by 0.85 seconds. Rabuck was one place away from scoring, taking ninth at 1:12.76, a season-best, and Copenhaver was 10th at 1:13.01.

That left the 200-meter dash as the last event to win at meet’s end. Early on, Tallier won the preliminaries at 27.14 seconds. In the final, she dropped to 26.81 seconds, again beating Wolf, this time by 0.3 seconds, while Scherer was third in 27.29 seconds. In the prelims, Rabuck (30.86) and Copenhaver (31.07) were 12th and 13th with Rabuck lowering her best time by a tenth of a second.

Tallier won four titles as a sophomore in the 2021 conference meet, but one of those wins came in the 1,600-meter relay.

Angell won a repeat conference title in the shot put with her preliminary throw of 37-10. Colby freshman Daelyn Rieck was 2 feet behind after the prelims and was only able to get 1.5 inches closer in the finals. Gilman’s Kaylee O’Malley added two points by placing seventh at 26-6.75. That throw came in the finals after her best preliminary throw was 25-2.25.

Rieck won the discus competition, however. After the prelims, Rieck held a 1-foot lead over Angell with a throw of 105-3. Angell got up to 105-6 in the finals, but Rieck got off a throw of 115-6 to win it. Loyal’s Hope Peroshek was a distant third at 89-1. O’Malley was 12th at 63-7.

Drier set a new personal-best time of 17.49 seconds in the 100-meter high hurdles and was 0.41 seconds behind winner Hayden Willner of Colby. Neillsville’s Gracie Schoengarth was third in 17.7 seconds. Willner won the 300-meter low hurdles too at 49.92 seconds, just ahead of Drier’s time of 50.25 seconds.

Columbus Catholic was fifth in the girls standings with 51.5 points, followed by Owen-Withee (30), Greenwood and Spencer (23) and Granton (22).

Boys score in five

Gilman’s boys scored 14 points to finish eighth out of nine teams and got those points in five events.

The 1,600-meter relay team of Quintin Franzen, Brady McAlpine, Braeden Person and Sawyer Winger got five of those points with a fourth-place finish in the night’s final race. They finished in 4:01.7, easily Gilman’s best time of the spring. Loyal won the race in 3:46.69, followed by Neillsville (3:55.27) and Spencer (3:56.03). Owen-Withee (4:06.17) and Columbus Catholic (4:08.33) trailed Gilman.

Franzen scored three points with a sixth-place finish in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles at 47.9 seconds, his best time of the year. Neillsville’s Ashten Schultz won in 43.42 seconds. Franzen added a ninth-place time of 19.83 seconds in the 110-meter high hurdles final. He was eighth in the prelims at 19.39 seconds.

Winger cleared 5-4 to take sixth out of 10 high jump competitors. Schultz won that too at 5-8, beating three jumpers who topped out at 5-6. Caleb Marion got two points with his seventh-place finish in the discus. His top throw of 99-3 came in the preliminaries and was sixth at the time. That was his best distance of 2023. Nathan Zarins of Owen-Withee won at 128-9. Marion made the shot put finals and placed ninth at 32-11. Zarins won that too at 43-6.5.

Person got Gilman’s last point with an eighth-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 59.39 seconds. He beat Owen-Withee’s Tim Stock by 0.19 seconds to get that point. McAlpine was 10th, Person was 13th and Winger was 17th in the 100-meter prelims in 12.25, 12.85 and 12.95 seconds. McAlpine (25.06) was 10th and Winger (26.38) was 12th in the 200-meter prelims with both being season-best times.

Mitchell Moran was ninth in the 1,600-meter run at 6:10.34, ninth in the 800-meter run at 2:38.85, 0.19 seconds away from scoring, and he was 14th in the long jump at 12-10.5.

Neillsville won its third straight team championship with 140 points. Owen-Withee gave the Warriors a run while finishing second with 129.333 points. Spencer was third with 113 points, followed by Colby (109), Columbus Catholic (78.667), Loyal (74) and Greenwood (27). Granton trailed Gilman with six points.

On to regionals

Gilman is one of 11 teams assigned to Monday’s WIAA Division 3 Flambeau regional, which is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. Along with the host Falcons, Bruce, Cadott, Chetek-Weyerhaeuser, Ladysmith, Lake Holcombe-Cornell, McDonell Central, New Auburn, Owen-Withee, and Thorp are the others.

The top four finishers in each event will advance to the May 25 WIAA Division 3 sectional in Cameron, where the top four in each event will qualify for the June 2-3 state meet at UW-La Crosse.

Gilman’s Brady McAlpine sprints through his heat of the 100-meter dash preliminaries Tuesday.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS