GILMAN TRACK & FIELD - Winger, Angell earn wins as Pirates jump into the great outdoors

GILMAN TRACK & FIELD

MATT FREY

SPORTS EDITOR

Nearly three weeks since their last competition, the Gilman Pirates track and field squad broke into the great outdoors Thursday with sixth- and eighth-place team finishes in their 10-team home opener.

Sawyer Winger won the boys high jump and Bailey Angell took the girls shot put competition and was second in the discus as Gilman’s top-placing individuals in the meet, while Trevor and Addy Vick jumped to thirds and the Pirates put together a couple of relay teams that also took third.

The girls placed sixth with 41.5 points, one-half point ahead of seventh-place Owen-Withee and ahead of Abbotsford (21), Columbus Catholic (12) and Granton (7).

Angell’s win in the shot put came with a distance of 35 feet, 8.75 inches, not her best but it was enough to win the competition quite comfortably. Cadott’s Haley Mathison was second at 32-8. They were the only two throwers to exceed 30 feet.

Mathison won the discus at 113-7, while Angell was 10 feet behind at 103-7 to start the outdoor season. Abbotsford’s Sommer Brodhagen was a distant third at 90-7.

Addy Vick’s third-place finish came in the long jump, where her best leap covered 14-11.5 and put her one-half inch ahead of McDonell Central’s Elyse Bushman. Pirate Claire Drier tied Cameron’s Katie Shilts for fifth at 14-7, 2 inches better than Drier’s last indoor jump. Cameron’s Lauren Peterson had the top jump of the day at 17-3.25, while Cadott’s Iszy Sonnentag (15-5) was second.

Drier tallied eight more points in the hurdles races. In the 300-meter event, Drier placed fourth out of 12 entrants in 52.07 seconds. Sonnentag won that race in 47.49 seconds. Drier took sixth in the 100-meter highs at 17.97 seconds, while Gilman’s Rilla Syryczuk placed 11th in 19.8 seconds. Sonnentag won this race too at 16.46 seconds.

Jaylen Copenhaver, Aubrey Steinbach, Vick and Drier teamed up to place third in the 800-meter relay at 1:58.35, trailing McDonell (1:49.22) and Stanley-Boyd (1:53.41). Cameron was fourth out of seven teams at 1:59.61.

Cameron won the meet with 174 points, followed by Cadott (123.5), McDonell (102.5), Stanley-Boyd (86) and Neillsville (57.5).

Gilman had several scoring near-misses. Kyra Rabuck was ninth in the 400-meter dash at 1:14.91, 2.56 seconds away from eighth place. Vick tied for ninth in the high jump at a personal best 4-4, needing 2 more inches to move up into scoring contention. Copenhaver tied for 14th at 4-2 and she was 10th in the 100-meter dash at 14.12 seconds, 0.05 seconds away from eighth place. Rabuck tied for 14th at 14.5 seconds. Vick was 10th in the 200-meter dash at 28.78 seconds, 0.08 seconds away from an eighth-place point.

Winger, a sophomore, hit the elusive 5-10 height for the first time and won the boys high jump by 2 inches over Abbotsford’s Chase Boller. Pirates Trevor Vick and Max Ustianowski both cleared 5 feet to tie for 11th.

Vick showed the triple jump potential the coaches felt the junior had when the season started. He got off a jump of 38-3, much better than his first meet when he went 32-2.5, and took third behind Cameron’s Jax Manor (39-10) and Neillsville’s Braylon Boyer (39-1). Vick was 17 inches ahead of fourth-place jumper Colter Dillenbeck of Neillsville. Pirate Mitchell Moran was 15th at 25-11.

Gilman got nine points in the long jump. Chad Konsella took fourth at 18-5, improving by 11.5 inches, Logan Halida was sixth at 17-8.75, improving by more than 2 feet, and Winger was eighth at 17-7. Stanley-Boyd’s Madden Mahr had the top jump at 21-2.5 and Abbotsford’s Christian Fuentes hit 20 feet even.

Senior Quintin Franzen scored nine points in the hurdles. He was fourth in the 300-meter intermediates at 47.58 seconds and fifth in the 110-meter highs at 18.78 seconds. Neillsville’s Ashten Schultz won both events at 44.38 and 16.2 seconds.

Halida added three points by taking sixth in the 400-meter dash at 1:00.02. He was just 0.58 seconds away from the top five. Another freshman, Taydyn Angell, scored three points with a sixth-place finish in the shot put at 36-9. Senior Caleb Marion was 11th at 33-6.5. Tyler Phillips of Cameron won at 42-7. Marion was 12th in the discus at 98-2, while Angell was 17th at 87 feet.

The team of James Wojcik, Vick, Halida and Konsella sprinted to a time of 50.56 seconds to place third in the 400-meter relay behind Abbotsford (47.95) and Neillsville (48.37) and 0.49 seconds ahead of fourth-place McDonell.

Other notable finishes for Gilman included Brady McAlpine taking 11th (25.57) in the 200-meter dash and 14th (12.27) in the 100-meter dash, Konsella taking 12th (11.99) in the 100-meter dash, Moran placing 11th in the 800-meter run (2:34.5) and 14th in the 1,600-meter run (6:06.93) and Winger taking 14th in the 200-meter dash (26.07).

The Pirates scored 46 points to finish ahead of Columbus Catholic (36) and Thorp (11.75). Stanley-Boyd won the meet with 163.25 points, followed by Owen-Withee (89.25), Cameron (84.5), McDonell (72.75), Neillsville (72), Abbotsford (60) and Cadott (47.5).

Tuesday’s Eleva-Strum Invitational was canceled due to weather. The Pirates will be at Stanley-Boyd on Friday, Medford on Tuesday and Bloomer on April 25.

Kaylee Copenhaver hits the sand during one of her triple jump attempts during Thursday’s track and field meet in Gilman. She finished 15th.