FIRST STEPS TOWARD STATE
WIAA DIV. 2 TRACK & FIELD
Another Richter record, more PRs at Colby
Athletes continued to peak at the right time of the season, three regional championships were won and 23 total entries –– 13 boys and 10 girls –– were qualified for today’s WIAA Division 2 sectional track and field meet at Arcadia during Monday’s regional competition at Colby High School.
Competing against five other Great Northern Conference rivals as well as Colby and Stanley-Boyd, the Medford Raiders took third in the boys meet with 105 points and fourth in the girls meet with 91 points with several personal records set by both teams.
But if there was one Raider who stole the show, it was junior Meredith Richter, who continued her assault on Medford’s girls track record board.
Richter set her fourth school record in just over two weeks, breaking a 2019 record in the 800-meter run when she stunned those in attendance by overtaking Northland Pines superstar Nora Gremban in the last 15 meters to win the race in 2:17.72, just ahead of Gremban’s 2:18.66. Gremban won the 1,600and 3,200-meter runs, where Richter took second and teammate Lindsay Kahn also advanced.
Richter and Gremban have become close friends in three years of high school cross country and track competition against each other and seeing how they do in sectional and state races will be a storyline to watch as the season concludes.
“It was a good night,” Richter said. “I did not really expect it to go that well. Coach and I kinda decided (the 800) was my goal race tonight. I wanted to get the record. So I knew I had to get out fast. Then we’re at the last stretch and I was like, “I’m kinda closing in (on Gremban). This has never happened before. I’m close, I just have to get her and get the record.”
Katie Phillips set that 2019 record of 2:18.15. Since May 6, Richter has broken Medford’s 1,600-, 400-, 3,200- and now 800-meter records. Medford head coach Shawn Sullivan said after the meet there’s no one more deserving.
“It’s fun to see her do so well, and she works so hard at it,” Sullivan said.
“I think after last year I showed myself hey, you can do this if you really want to,” Richter said. “Just put your mind to it and you can surprise yourself. I didn’t think this season would be this fantastic. But it’s been really good. It’s fun.”
In the 1,600-meter run Monday, Richter finished in 5:27.73, well behind Gremban’s 5:07.25, but well ahead of Lakeland’s Ada Ernst, who took third in 5:39.26. The fourth sectional-qualifying spot went to Kahn, who finished in a personal-record 5:39.86 to easily beat Rhinelander’s Julianna Smith (5:54.38).
About 90 minutes later came the 800, where Gremban pulled ahead quickly but Richter stayed within striking distance and then made her move with a late hard sprint. Raider Ella Daniels was sixth in a personal-record 2:37.1 and Lillie Gleichauf got a point for Medford by taking eighth in her best time of the spring at 2:39.09.
“Super, super proud of the team,” Richter said. “It’s so fun to watch people improve throughout the season. Even if they don’t continue on, everyone is still PRing. I know Ella in her 800, she was like, ‘I’m not going to make it,’ but she still PR’d. I was like, ‘half of the people just give up by then, but you didn’t.’ That’s really good. It’s nice to see people with that mentality.”
After the 200-meter dash finals, it was a quick turnaround for some runners to go right into the 3,200-meter run. Gremban found her stride again and won it in 11:49.58, while Richter and Kahn were next at 12:14.15 and 12:46.47 to earn sectional spots. Raider Ella Dassow also took 10th in 14:27.85.
That was only the second time Richter has run the 3,200 this spring with the first time being her record run of 11:19.51 at Marshfield on May 12.
“After Marshfield when I ran the 3,200, coach was like, ‘I thought you’d do well, but I didn’t think you’d do that well,’” Richter said. “I was like, ‘I’m never running that again, right?’ But she was like, ‘yeah, we’ll see and talk about it later.’ And I was like, ‘oh great.’
“It was between two mile and 400, which are very different races,” Richter said of the decision regarding what to compete in during the post-season. “But state wise I had a better chance in 3,200. So we went with that. I’m fine with that. The 400 would’ve been really hard. There are girls, state-wise, that are fast this year and last year didn’t go well at state in the 400. So we decided to stick with this, which I’m happy with. The turnaround from the 800 to the 3,200 though is tough. This is the first time I’ve had this lineup and wow, this is a lot. The mile and 800 are Friday at state and the 3,200 is the next day. So, we just have to get there. Thursday (at the sectional) will be tough, but it will be good.”
Another Raider who seems headed for a return trip to state is junior Jaylin Machon, who tied her own school record in the pole vault while taking second place, advanced with a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles and helped two relay teams advance to Arcadia.
In the pole vault, she and Willow Oehmichen of Colby were the final two competitors, as has happened on multiple occasions this spring. Both hit clutch vaults at 10 feet, 6 inches to give themselves shots at 11 feet. Neither quite got there and Oehmichen won the tiebreaker to earn the first-place points. But both advanced as strong state candidates in today’s field of 16 as only one vaulter, Arcadia’s Casidi Pehler (12 feet) got higher in Monday’s regionals.
In the high hurdles, Machon had the fourth-fastest preliminary time at 17.54 seconds to easily make the final, where she again took fourth in 17.6 seconds, just 0.03 seconds behind Colby’s Hayden Willner. Mosinee’s Malina Carattini won in 16.29 seconds and Rhinelander freshman Aila Bergman was second (17.29).
Medford’s 400-meter relay team of Lindsey Klapatauskas, Stacy Stolp, Brenley Beran and Machon turned in Medford’s fastest time of the spring at 54.11 seconds and took second in its race behind Tomahawk (52.53) and just ahead of Rhinelander (54.74). Northland Pines (55.21) also advanced. In the 800-meter relay, Aliyah Pilgrim, Riley Clark, Beran and Machon got Medford to the sectional with a fourth-place time of 1:54.52, well ahead of fifth-place Rhinelander (1:57.41). Mosinee (1:45.56), Tomahawk (1:50.59) and Northland Pines (1:54.32) qualified.
The 1,600-meter team of Pilgrim, Autumn Cooley, Clark and Gleichauf was sixth in 4:39.78, 6.29 seconds behind fourth-place Stanley-Boyd and the 3,200-meter team of Daniels, Dassow, Clark and Gleichauf was sixth in 11:19.92. Lakeland won in 10:16.18 and Tomahawk got the fourth-place spot in 10:51.57.
The rest of the scoring by Medford’s girls came in field events.
Lindsey Klapatauskas advanced to Arcadia as the third-place finisher in the triple jump at 30 feet, 11.5 inches, while Stolp was fifth at 29-3, 7.75 inches behind Colby’s Veronica Mateer, a member of the Medford-Colby gymnastics co-op. Klapatauskas also got the eighth-place point in the shot put at 27-4, while Rivalee Stokes was ninth at 27-2.75. Stokes was one spot shy in the discus, taking fifth at 92-7, 50 inches behind fourth-place Ayla McCormick of Tomahawk. Rachel Wesle was 11th for Medford at 74 feet.
Beran was sixth in the long jump with her personal-best 14-5. Daniels was ninth at 14-2.5 and Stolp was 10th at 13-7.25.
Amy Espinoza (1:15.32) and Ashley Hernandez (1:16.3) had their best times of the spring while taking 10th and 12th in the 400-meter dash. Alexis Zuleger was 11th (31.15) and 14th (14.91) in the 200and 100-meter dashes and Adalyn Dittrich was 13th in the 300-meter hurdles at 1:04.42.
Northland Pines won the girls team championship with 107 points, just ahead of Mosinee (101.5) and Colby (96). Tomahawk was fifth with 80 points, followed by Lakeland (76.5), Rhinelander (76) and Stanley-Boyd (67).
Lots of contributors
Medford’s boys got contributions from several sources in their 105-point total and 13 sectional entries.
Senior Silas Wipf played a role in both of Medford’s regional championships and three of its sectional entries. First, Vincent Seidel, Josh Clark, Zach Rudolph and Wipf ran away with the 3,200-meter relay championship in 8:19.21, which was the best time for a Medford team this spring and beat runner-up Tomahawk by almost 50 seconds. Medford is the top seed at today’s sectional.
Then, Wipf showed why he was the top seed going into the 800-meter run, winning it in a personal-best 2:02.69, 0.54 seconds ahead of Stanley-Boyd’s Lucas Walker. Medford scored 18 points in the race as Adyn Gripentrog advanced with a fourth-place time of 2:05.66 that smashed his previous record and Seidel was sixth at 2:15.97.
To end the night, Charlie Kleist, Gage Losiewicz, Rudolph and Wipf took third in the 1,600-meter relay at 3:37.46, handily beating fourth-place Rhinelander (3:42.95) and advancing along with Lakeland (3:32.41) and Northland Pines (3:32.81).
Medford is sending all four of its relay teams to Arcadia Thursday. The 800-meter team of Anakin Stokes, Cory Lindahl, Jose Herrera and Kleist got second with its time of 1:32.93 that fell just 0.59 seconds behind Lakeland. Stanley-Boyd (1:33.42) and Rhinelander (1:35.85) also advanced. The 400-meter team of Herrera, Evan Paul, Lindahl and Kleist got the third qualifying spot with its time of 45.47 seconds, 0.36 seconds ahead of fourth-place Colby. Pines won in 43.78 seconds and Stanley-Boyd (44.69) was second.
Sophomore Paxton Rothmeier had one of Medford’s most exciting individual races to watch. After qualifying for the final in seventh position in the 110-meter high hurdles with his preliminary time of 19.36 seconds, he ran a nearly perfect race from the outside lane in the final, taking second in a personal-record 17.77 seconds, just 0.52 seconds behind winner Nic Schmelzer of Stanley-Boyd and 0.21 seconds ahead of qualifying hurdlers Connor Simpson of Lakeland and Zander Deiniger of Mosinee. Freshman Will Daniels set a personal-record time of 45.65 seconds to take sixth in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles, just 0.41 seconds away from advancing, while Rothmeier was ninth at 47.73 seconds.
Stokes and Caleb Scoles qualified for the 200-meter dash final, where Stokes sprinted to a third-place time of 23.46 seconds and qualified for the sectional. Scoles got the eighth-place point at 24.95 seconds. Itsael Medina was 0.16 seconds away from making the final, taking 10th at 25.47 seconds. Earlier in the meet, Scoles punched his sectional ticket by taking fourth in the 400-meter dash at 55.31 seconds and holding off Colby’s Lucas Baumann by 0.34 seconds. Medina was 10th in the 100-meter dash prelims at 12.6 seconds, a tenth away from making the final.
Josh Clark advanced by taking third in the 1,600-meter run at 4:42.16. The top four separated from the pack with Lakeland’s Owen Clark (4:33.72), Walker (4:42.11) and Lakeland’s Levi Reimer (4:44.98) advancing. Raider senior Lucas Borman capped his steady prep career by taking seventh in 5:21.52. Senior Ervin Ulrich also got better and better as the year went on and took 12th in the 3,200-meter run at 11:40.17.
In the field, Medford scored big in the triple jump with Owen Stockwell and Paul both breaking the 40-foot barrier for the first time. Stockwell was an inch better, 40-2 to 40-1, but both advanced by placing third and fourth behind Jack Gjovik (42-3.25) and Ryan Muench (41-4.5) of Northland Pines.
Losiewicz didn’t have his best day in the pole vault competition, but he hit 11-6 and advanced as the fourth-place finisher. Paul just missed in the long jump, placing fifth at a personal-best 19-9, a half-inch ahead of Kleist. Colby’s Ivan Haemer got the fourth spot at 20-0.25. Colby’s Caden Healy won at 20-9. Lindahl was 10th for Medford at 18-9.5. Paul also took sixth in the high jump by clearing the bar at 5-8.
Raider senior Will Haavisto was 18th in the shot put at 33-8 and senior Jacob Rechtzigel was 19th in the discus at 72-7.
Lakeland just got by Stanley-Boyd 149-145 to win the regional championship. Northland Pines was fourth with 89 points, followed by Rhinelander (69), Colby (66), Tomahawk (47) and Mosinee (31).
Today’s sectional meet in Arcadia starts with field events at 4 p.m. The first race is at 4:45 p.m. The top four finishers in each event qualify for the WIAA Division 2 state championships at UW-La Crosse June 2-3. Competition there starts at 9:30 a.m. on Friday.
Medford’s Meredith Richter gets out to a fast start, along with Lakeland’s Grace Kern (l.) and Nora Gremban of Northland Pines during the 800-meter run in Monday’s WIAA Div. 2 Colby regional. Richter made a late push to win the race in a schoolrecord time of 2:17.72.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Medford’s Anakin Stokes isn’t going to be denied a sectional berth as he sprints to a third-place finish in the 200-meter dash final during Monday’s regional meet in Colby.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
