Pair of Falcons headed to state

Two Falcons punched their tickets to the state competition in La Crosse on Thursday afternoon at the D3 sectional track meet in Marathon. Senior Marcus Bohl will be moving on in the discus and junior Syndey Falteisek will be running in the 100-meter hurdles.

Both will be bringing previous state experiences to the table.

Bohl will be looking for a third straight season of improvement this coming Thursday after a fourth place finish in the discus at Marathon earned him a spot in his third consecutive state competition. He has competed at UW-La Crosse’s Veterans Memorial Stadium twice before, taking 11th place in the discus as a sophomore and ninth place as a junior.

The Abbotsford senior’s throw of 145 feet, 11 inches placed him eighth in the state coming into the competition, but the Falcons’ record-holder has been consistently reaching marks over 150 feet, which would place him even higher. Only three throwers put up numbers higher than his personal best at sectionals, opening the door for his best potential finish.

Meanwhile, the last time Falteisek competed at the state meet, she ran the same distance, albeit with fewer hurdles and more batons involved in the process. She was part of the 4x100-meter relay as a sophomore last season, where she and teammates Sommer Brodhagen, Briseida Escalera and Chloe Cihlar took 11th place.

This year, the junior finds herself headed to La Crosse to compete in the 100-meter hurdles. She ran a personal best race in the finals of the event in Marathon, putting a lightning fast time of 16.50 seconds, earning herself fourth place. She defeated Edgar’s Amber Skrzypcak by .18 seconds to snatch the final spot up for grabs in the competition, edging out the Wildcat hurdler after placing behind her at both the conference and regional competitions.

There were a pair of Falcons that just missed the cut for the state meet. Christian Fuentes earned himself a fifth place finish in the long jump after putting in a personal best leap of 19 feet, seven-and-a-quarter inches. The freshman very nearly joined his teammates in La Crosse, but the narrowest of margins separated himself and fourth-place finisher Ian Koss of Iola-Scandinavia, who recorded a jump of 19 feet, eight inches.

Margo Pogodzinski found herself in a similar situation in the discus, where her personal best throw of 111 feet came up just 16 inches short of a state berth. The sophomore earned herself and the Falcons a fifth place finish for her efforts, leaving her one spot shy of moving on.

Pogodzinski and Fuentes also competed in the shot put and the 200-meter dash respectively. Pogodzinski took ninth place in the shot put with a throw of 33 feet, eight-and-half inches and Fuentes placed seventh with a time of 24.13 seconds in the sprint.

Brodhagen also competed in the discus for the Falcons at the sectional meet. The junior took 10th place, recording a throw of 96 feet, five inches. Azul Diaz earned herself 12th place in the 1600-meter run with a time of 6:01.54 and Cihlar rounded out the individual finishers for the girls team with a 13th place finish in the 100-meter dash, where she put in a time of 13.73 seconds.

Of the three girls’ relay teams that competed at the sectional meet, the 4x800-meter relay had the Falcons’ highest finish, taking eighth place with a time of 10:50.45. The 4x100-meter relay team placed 10th with a time of 53.56 seconds and the 4x200-meter team took 11th with a time of 1:53.45.

The boys’ 4x200-meter relay team took 10th on Thursday, putting in a time of 1:37.25. Meanwhile, Chase Boller took ninth in the high jump, reaching a height of five feet, eight inches.

Bohl and Falteisek will compete in La Crosse this coming weekend. The meet is held over two days, with half the field events and the preliminaries for the running events taking place on Friday, June 2 and the other half of the field events and the finals for the running events occurring on Saturday, June 3. Falteisek will compete on Friday with the track events to start at 9:30 a.m. Meanwhile, Bohl will compete on Saturday, the D3 boys’ discus also beginning at 9:30 a.m.