May 2, 2022 at 9:26 a.m.
Hodag boys 1st, girls 2nd at Eagle Relays
Hodag boys 1st, girls 2nd at Eagle Relays
The Hodag boys won six events to edge Northland Pines by two points for the overall title in the six-team meet. The Hodag girls also tallied six first-place finishes, taking second just five points behind Tomahawk.
It was a unique event in which virtually all the running events were relays. The combined performance of a team's three entries were used to determine the results in the hurdles and the field events, where relay exchanges were not possible.
Rhinelander coach Aaron Kraemer admitted he likely left some points on the table due to a misinterpretation of the rules. Even so, he noted that for him the event was more about individual performances and trying some athletes in different events.
"I thought, no matter what if we had somebody in the event, we would be scoring based on distances and times," he said. "Some of our events, we ended up losing points just because we didn't have three people in it. But, honestly, the way that we performed tonight, I have no doubt in my mind that, in a regularly-formatted meet, the girls and the boys would have both taken first place.
"It was a fun meet tonight. I'm really glad they got to compete in it and back at it next week with two other big meets."
Rhinelander had balanced scoring across all disciplines on the boys' side. Arik Beske, Payton Campbell, Caleb Olcikas and Beau Howard won the 4x100-meter relay (46.12 seconds). Cody Ruetz, Jack DeNamur, Greyson Gremban and Ty Welk took the 4x800 (9:11.42) and Rhinelander won the 4x100 throwers' relay with Reid Schultz, Logan Schwinger, David Houg and Brock Snyder (53.66).
Kraemer admitted the Hodags had an ace in the hole with Snyder, who also won the shot put individually on Thursday. Snyder was part of Rhinelander's Great Northern Conference champion 4x100 relay last spring.
"There aren't many throwers that can sprint like Brock," he said. "Brock's somebody that could be up there in some of these races. He's probably the top four, top five guys on our team that run the 40-yard dash. That's always nice to have."
Though Rhinelander did not have enough entries to factor in the team scoring in the hurdle events, senior Cole Worrall swept the 110s (16.55) and the 300s (43.37) for a third straight meet.
Conner Jensen had a personal-best throw of 128 feet in the discus, leading the Hodags to a team win in that event. Snyder was third and Houg finished seventh for the Hodags.
"Conner threw 128 feet, which was his goal. His goal's always to beat Brock. So that's a big win for him and I know now Brock's going to be hungry to come back out and throw 130 next week to beat him," Kraemer noted.
Kaleb Winter, AJ Gillespie and Ty Welk went second, third and fourth to take the pole vault relay. Jaden Beske finished second individually in the high jump as the Hodags won that event. DeNamur was sixth and Truman Lamers finished 12th.
On the girls' side, it was another big day for freshman Callie Hoerchler. She won the high jump (4 feet, 4 inches) and led a 1-2-3 finish in the 300 hurdles (56.81) with teammates Kyleah Hartman and Averie West. Hoerchler finished second in the 100 hurdles with West third and Hartman fifth as Rhinelander won that event. She also pole vaulted for the first time, helping Rhinelander tie for first as a team in that event, led by Rivers Eagleson and Gussie Gruett.
"She got over 5-6 today in competition, and we're putting a lot of pressure on her as a freshman," Kraemer said of Hoerchler. "She's running two, three events and doing two, three things in the field. She's just impressive. She won the high jump tonight with a jump off. She really is an impressive athlete. If she sticks with it, she's going to be right there with some of our best times in the hurdles, ever."
Rhinelander's used some of its top sprinters to capture two relay races on the girls' side. Megan Brown, Emma Germain and Sage Flory teamed with Gruett to win the 800-meter sprint medley (2:01.77), and with freshman Reese Gehrig to win the 4x200 (1:54.15).
"We put our normal 4x1 team in that - Emma and Sage and Megan - and then we added Augusta Gruett," Kraemer noted. "She's always been running our 400 for us. She's been really, really good. All the split times for that were really, really good. We haven't run anything like that. We had a mess up on a handoff. It was kind of slow, but they dusted that race by six, seven seconds, which was really good."
Germain added a personal-best performance in the triple jump, leaping 32-11 1/2 to win that event.
"Emma worked on some technical things with her run up this week," Kraemer said. "I told her she's going to have to attack the board to get to the 33-mark and we watched the measurement of that and it looked like 33 feet, but 32-11 1/2 is her best jump that she's had. She was really excited."
Rhinelander also took the discus as a team behind a fourth-place finish from Kiera Hartzke, a fifth from Abby Swanson and a ninth from Lizzy Snyder. The same trio placed second in the shot put.
Eagleson, Gruett, Hartman and freshman Luna Grage finished second in the 4x400. Gehrig, West, Emma Deede and Mia Gillingham were third in the 4x100. Grage, Alyssa Smits, Brynn Teter and Maria Hubler finished third in the 4x800.
The Rhinelander boys took second in the 4x200 (Arik Beske, Kyrle Vanney, Olcikas and Howard), the 4x400 (Welk, Winter, Worrall, Ruetz), and the 4,000 medley relay (DeNamur, Welk, Ruetz, Gremban).
Snyder's 42-foot throw in the shot put helped Rhinelander to a third-place finish in that event. Jensen finished 12th and Sam Balge was 15th. Arik Beske and Beau Howard both placed in the top five, individually in the long jump, as Rhinelander took third as a team.
Rhinelander also got a third-place run from Bryan Glover, Gillespie, Jason Zheng and Gremban in the 4x1600. Kraemer said the last-minute addition to the lineup, and the four points they scored, were the difference between finishing first and tying for second in the team standings.
"Without that race, if they don't run it, we don't win. People made sacrifices tonight, did different things," he said.
Rhinelander returns to action this afternoon in the Three Lakes Invite and will head to Merrill on Friday for the annual Otto Bacher Invitational.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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