RIB LAKE TRACK & FIELD - Redmen contend for girls title at Merrill meet

RIB LAKE TRACK & FIELD

Olivia Lopez had another big day and she wasn’t alone Thursday as Rib Lake’s girls track and field team made a push toward winning the Merrill Blue Jay Indoor Invitational.

The Redmen scored 99.5 points to put them right in a four-team mix for the meet championship. Lacking the depth to enter two of the meet’s three relays, Rib Lake came up just behind Rhinelander (105) and Merrill (100) and settled for third, one point ahead of Wittenberg-Birnamwood.

Waupaca (76) and Prentice (56) finished fifth and sixth. Lopez won two events and placed second in two more. Emma Tlusty and Isabelle Gumz finished first and second in the 50-meter hurdles and both scored plenty more points. Hadassah Nelson also was a top-three individual finisher for the Redmen.

In the field, Lopez hit her best distance ever in the triple jump at 33 feet, 4.5 inches, which won the event by 21 inches over Waupaca’s Molly Martens. No other girl was even close. Lopez also went 15-11 in the long jump to reach new territory for her and place second in the meet, 3.5 inches behind Martens. Tlusty was third with a jump of 14-1, 1.5 inches ahead of Rhinelander’s Karly Gillingham. Gumz was 10th at 12-8.

On the track, Lopez had the second-best time in the 50-meter dash preliminaries at 7.32 seconds and turned that into a victory in the final, finishing in 7.09 seconds, 0.05 seconds ahead of preliminary winner Olivia Ruetz of Rhinelander. Rib Lake freshman Kloey Paul also made the final with a preliminary time of 7.7 seconds. She finished seventh in 7.77 seconds.

Lopez finished the meet with a second-place time of 29.89 seconds in the 200-meter dash, 0.68 seconds behind winner Aila Bergmann of Rhinelander. Tlusty scored three points by placing sixth in 32.22 seconds, while Paul just missed scoring, taking ninth in 32.45 seconds, 0.08 seconds behind Rhinelander’s Emma Leigh Deede.

Tlusty posted the best time out of 10 entrants in the 50-meter hurdles at 9.0 seconds, while Gumz (9.25) was third and Rademacher (9.7) was fifth to all make the final. There, Tlusty and Gumz got the top two spots at 9.06 and 9.28 seconds, just ahead of Merrill’s Brooklyn Kragenbrink (9.37). Rademacher got fourth in a quicker time of 9.5 seconds.

Gumz, Tlusty, Nelson and Paul teamed up to win the four-lap sprint relay in 1:35.82, just ahead of Rhinelander’s team, which finished in 1:36.21. Merrill was third in 1:36.32, followed by Wittenberg-Birnamwood (1:37.09) and Prentice (1:44.66).

Gumz reached an early-season goal of hers by hitting the 30-foot mark in the shot put competition. At 30-0.5, she placed second, 9 inches behind winner Josie Nickel of Waupaca. Rib Lake’s Tessa Krause took fourth at 27-1 and Camryn Glenzer was 5 inches away from scoring, taking ninth at 22-3.

Nelson tied Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s Ava Brei for third by clearing 4-4 in the high jump. Prentice’s Kayla Gillett won at 4-6, winning a tiebreaker over Kragenbrink. Nelson also was 14th in the 50-meter dash preliminaries in 8.47 seconds.

Anna Martin got a point for Rib Lake by taking eighth in the 400-meter dash in a time of 1:21.4.

The boys meet in Merrill was delayed two days and, instead, was held Thursday in conjunction with the girls meet. Rib Lake scored 71 points to place fourth behind Waupaca (170), Rhinelander (120) and Merrill (103). Prentice was fifth with 43 points and Wittenberg-Birnamwood scored 16.

The team of Kaleb Scott, Elijah Scott, Henry Regier and Jack Regier made an early impact on the track, winning the 20-lap relay in 9:05.39, well ahead of Waupaca (9:53.15). Teams from Rhinelander and Merrill were disqualified.

Jack Regier won the 800-meter run in 2:24.15, while his brother Henry was right behind him in second place, giving the Redmen 18 points. Henry Regier’s time was 2:28.33. Henry added another second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run at 5:08.89, just 1.7 seconds behind winner Gus Olson of Waupaca. Rib Lake’s Connor Highfill was fourth in 5:24.4.

Highfill wasn’t done there. He got six points by placing third in the 3,200-meter run at 12:24.26, trailing Waupaca’s Ian Sherman (10:53.32) and Olson (11:39.14).

Kaleb Scott outlasted cross country teammate Matthew Schmidt of Prentice by 0.08 seconds to win the 400-meter dash in 57.2 seconds. Rib Lake’s Riley Johnson tacked on three points with his sixth-place time of 1:06.6. Gus Zuleger also had a strong outing, scoring twice in field events. The sophomore nearly won the long jump as his best leap of 17-10 fell just one-half inch behind Waupaca’s Brody Woitczak. Johnson (14-3.5) and Rib Lake’s Allan Head (12-11) were 10th and 12th. Zuleger went 32-7 in the triple jump to place seventh.

Demetrio Garelli made the 50-meter dash final with the eighth-best preliminary time of 7.0 seconds. He was eighth in the final as well at 7.25 seconds. Zuleger was ninth (7.01) and Isaiah Hubbard was 14th (7.31) in the preliminaries. Garelli was one spot and 0.47 seconds away from scoring in the 200-meter dash, taking ninth in 29.03 seconds. Hubbard (30.33) and Riley Schatz (31.76) were 12th and 14th. Schatz also placed ninth in the high jump by clearing 4-4.

Hubbard and Clinton Peterson were 13th and 14th in the shot put with tosses of 22-9 and 19-9.