March 17, 2017 at 5:16 p.m.
Hodag track competes in first meet of the season
Hodag track competes in first meet of the season
The Hodags competed with only 15 of its roughly 70 kids Thursday in a quadrangular meet at Wisconsin Rapids - with head coach Chris Ferge and girls' coach Brittany Haakenson also on vacation.
Given the circumstances, Rhinelander was pleased with how it performed.
"Considering the factors, I think we did pretty well," Rhinelander assistant coach Aaron Kraemer said. "The boys had three points and it looked like Wisconsin Rapids had 80 boys out, so that's not too bad, we're scoring a few points. The girls had seven points and won an event, which is awesome. I think with the 15 people we had, [we had a] pretty good showing."
Wisconsin Rapids, Port Edwards and Reedsburg were the other schools in the meet. Teams were allowed unlimited entries in each event and the meet was scored through the top five places.
Junior Lexie Rick had the highlight of the meet for Rhinelander, winning the girls' shot put with a throw of 31 feet, 5 1/2 inches, and accounting for six of the team's seven points on the day.
Mattia Beske scored the other point in the 400-meter dash, with a time of 1:18.03, good enough for fourth place.
A.J. Kopplin took fourth place in the high jump with a leap of 5-6 in his first time competing in the event.
The 4x400 meter relay team of Chase Hunt, Brock Lieder, Anthony Kowalski and Alex Monk took third place (4:24.17).
The first meet of the season is always tricky in general, but add in the fact this one was on short notice and with so few people in attendance, the Hodags just wanted to use the meet to feel things out.
"The goal coming was just to test our legs a little bit," Kraemer said. "Last week we ran them pretty hard, we were trying to get them in shape for our second week of meets next week going to Lakeland. Our goal was to get the kids who were here to compete a little bit and get their feet wet, especially the kids who hadn't been a part of the track team in the past."
Preparing for the meet was a tough task for everyone involved.
Kraemer was the only coach remaining in town for spring break, and he had a conference on Monday, which canceled practice.
"Getting everything prepared for this meet was kind of a jumble," Kraemer said. "But the kids are what pushed it over the edge. The did a good job preparing themselves to get ready and they did a really good job."
The Hodags are set to compete take part in the Lakeland Indoor invite Tuesday in Minocqua. The event gets underway at 4:15 p.m.
A full preview of the Rhinelander track and field team is scheduled to appear in Tuesday's edition of the River News.
Nick Sabato may be reached at [email protected] or via Twitter @SabatoNick.
Comments:
You must login to comment.