May 7, 2018 at 11:46 a.m.
Hodags face tough competition at Otto Bacher
Hodags face tough competition at Otto Bacher
The majority of the field provided a gauge of what Rhinelander will see a week from today at the Great Northern Conference meet and the following Monday at WIAA regionals.
"I thought we did pretty well. We didn't have a lot of top-three finishes, but we had a lot of top-eights, lot of kids making it into the finals from the trials, which was encouraging," coach Aaron Kraemer said. "When you look at the competition we were going against, it was basically our conference minus Northland Pines and some of the Valley schools thrown in. It was a great test of where we are at and a great test of our ability to compete with the teams we're going to see in the next couple of weeks."
In fact, Rhinelander had only one top-three finish in the event, Peyton Erikson in the triple jump. The sophomore jumped 41 feet, 1.75 inches despite tweaking an injury in warmups, according to Kraemer.
"He was able to jump 41 feet and then called it quits for the day," he said. "There's still a lot left of Peyton, but you look at the people he was going against, a third place was very impressive."
Erikson added an eighth-place finish in the long jump.
On the girls' side, senior Lexie Rick turned in the team's best performances, placing fourth in the discus and fifth in the shot put.
"She's still not where she wants to be in the disc," Kraemer noted. "Still, she's improving in the disc and, in the shot put, she's really working on a rotational release that's helping her out as far as getting distance but, if there's one part of that release that goes wrong, it's hard to get your best distance."
The Otto Bacher features a championship-style format with preliminary heat races in the 100 meters, the 100/110 hurdles and the 200 meters. Rhinelander had five qualifiers for the finals in those events to go along with a couple of near misses.
Alex Monk was the second-fastest qualifier in the 110 hurdles, with a personal-best time of 17.88 seconds. He backed that up with an 18.02 time in the finals and placed fourth.
"If he can get himself under 18, he's going to be very, very competitive in our conference and going into our regional," Kraemer said. "He's starting to figure out his rhythm, getting his power off the hurdle and getting back to the ground. He's getting to the point where he's going to be very, very competitive."
Will Swanson also qualified for the finals in the 110 hurdles and finished ninth.
Rhinelander nearly had three qualifiers in the boys' 100 meters. Josh Francisco finished sixth after qualifying seventh in the event. AJ Kopplin finished ninth after qualifying eighth and Nick Kriesel wound up 10th after missing the finals by 0.01 seconds. Kriesel also finished 10th in the 200, missing the final nine by 0.10 seconds.
"That would have been something to have three kids in (the finals of the 100)," Kraemer said. "I know (Kriesel) was disappointed and he's just going to come back stronger next week, because that's the kind of person that he is."
Those three, along with Drake Martin, came back to place fourth in the 4x100-meter relays (46.63).
On the girls' side, after false starting out of the 100, Ellen Padgett qualified for the finals in the 200 and finished eighth.
Rhinelander also placed sixth in the girls' 4x100 with the team of Mattia Beske, Sam Siefert, Delaney Chillemi and Isabella Anderson.
On the boys' side, Calvin Schneider jumped 5-8 to place fourth in the high jump, Daniel Ritchie was fifth in the 400 meters, Drake Martin was sixth in the shot put, Jacques Tulowitzky was sixth in the 300 hurdles, Kopplin was seventh in the high jump and Bridger Flory was eighth in the 1,600. Rhinelander also added a sixth-place finish in the 4x400.
"That's what stands out for me for this season for these kids. Every single week it seems that we have a ton of personal records to celebrate and the kids just keep getting better and better every single week," Kraemer said. "Despite having four meets in two weeks it's been PR after PR. We're impressed with all of our kids. They keep showing up to practice. They're hungry and you can tell at the meets they're just trying to burst their PRs every single week. That's all we can ask from them."
Rhinelander was without freshman high jumper Rebecca Lawrence for the second straight meet. Kraemer said she's day-to-day with a leg injury.
The Hodags are back in action today at the Tomahawk Invite.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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