May 15, 2023 at 7:54 a.m.
Hodag track sweeps home invite
RHS gears up for wide open GNC meet this afternoon
Hodag track sweeps home invite
The Hodags scored narrow victories in both the boys' and girls' divisions of their home invite at Mike Webster Stadium. The Hodag boys, looking to defend their conference title, edged chief rival Northland Pines by three points on Thursday. The Hodag girls, looking to make noise in the conference this year after finishing sixth last year, edged Phillips by 5 1/2 points for the team title.
Regardless of what happens this afternoon in the GNC meet at Lakeland, Kraemer said it was gratifying to sweep at home, especially considering that the event has been canceled two of the previous three years - last year due to weather and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It was a great atmosphere and our kids, they deserve it," he said. "They've worked so hard over the last couple of years and to not have a home meet, it stinks. It was great for the kids, great for our community and an excellent meet overall, great night."
Both team races were neck-and-neck down the stretch. Rhinelander and Northland Pines were tied with two events left to score in the boys' meet. Greyson Gremban took the win the 3,200-meter run to give Rhinelander a five-point cushion entering the 4x400 meter relay. Though Northland Pines won that race, the Hodags took third and sixth with their two entries to hold on for the overall title.
On the girls' side, Rhinelander and Phillips were separated by 2 1/2 points with just the 4x400 and the pole vault remaining. Rhinelander finished second and third in the 4x400, canceling out Phillips' first- and fifth-place finishes. Senior Gussie Gruett added a third-place tie in the pole vault to account for the final margin.
"Greyson doing what he did in the 3,200 and then the boys in the 4x4 taking third to keep the points where they were, that was excellent. But it was a cumulative effort," Kraemer said. "Our team is deeper than most. That's credit to our coaching staff and our players for enjoying being a part of the team and being out every year. This is the largest team I've ever had ... They showed out today and they showed their depth in a lot of different events."
Gremban scored one of four first-place finishes for the Hodag boys on the night. Senior Kaleb Winter took the pole vault with a height of 11 feet, 6 inches. Sophomore Truman Lamers cleared 6 feet in the high jump for the first time, scoring a win in that event, and freshman Jackson Fuss claimed the 400 meters in a time of 55.04 seconds.
"He's been very, very good for us. He did a great job in the open 400, a great job in the 4x4, ran the 100 tonight and he's showing you that 12-low speed as a freshman," Kraemer said of Fuss. "That's something that we can continue to work on and he's going to be a guy that I see, by the time his senior year is up, he's going to be up there in the conference in the sprints."
The Hodag girls added three wins on the night, all by freshmen. Aila Bergman swept the 100 hurdles (17.41) and 300 hurdles (48.53) while Libbey Buchmann scored the win in the discus (104 feet, 5 inches).
The Hodag girls got a runner-up finish from Gussie Gruett in the 400 (1:04.38). She was also on the runner-up 4x400 relay squad with Reese Gehrig, Bergman and Luna Grage (4:21.37).
"We're so young. Aila did great tonight. Gussie did great tonight, the 4x4, the relays, Libbey in throws did great," Kraemer said. "We just have a really good core group of girls and they're doing a really great job scoring for each other and with each other."
The Hodag boys went 3-4-5 in the triple jump with Lamers, Myles Eagleson and Kaleb Winter. Shane Petrick and Kade Tessman finished third and fourth in the long jump for Rhinelander. Kraemer said those events will be critical for the Hodags today as they try to keep up with the Northland Pines duo of Jack Gjovik and Ryan Muench, who went 1-2 in both events Thursday.
"You look at the jumps, if we're going to do well (at the GNCs) with the boys, we're going to have to take some points from Pines in the jumps," he said. "Today, in the long jump (we went) three, four, five. Then in the triple jump Truman taking third was big too. I know he's going to want to win that event and push to win. Him winning the high jump was huge for us."
Abe Barlog added a third-place finish in the 110 hurdles for Rhinelander, Gremban was third in the 1,600, Cody Ruetz was fourth in the 800 and Conner Jensen took fourth in the discus. Payton Campbell finished fourth in the 100 meters and fifth in the 200, Dresden Klaver added a fifth-place showing in the 110 hurdles.
The team of Campbell, Daniel Gillingham, Sam Zwaard and Kyrle Vanney took second in the 4x100; Olin Slette, Shawn Denis, Gremban and Ruetz were third in the 4x800; Winter, Fuss, Ruetz and Ben Olson were third in the 4x400.
Buchmann added a third-place toss for Rhinelander in the girls' shot put, Bergman was fourth in the triple jump and Callie Hoerchler took fourth in the long jump. Juliana Smith was fifth in both the 1,600 and 3,200 while freshman Zoey Walker took fifth in the 800.
Millie Gruett, Kyleah Hartman, Maddie Legrey and Violet Biolo made up Rhinelander's second 4x400 relay team, which finished third. Smith, Brynn Teter, Maria Hubler and Grage took third in the 4x800; Gehrig, Lexi Bishop, Emma Deede and Biolo were third in the 4x100; Mille Gruett, Tori Stella, Deede and Bishop took fourth in the 4x200.
Five of the seven GNC schools were in attendance for Tuesday's meet. Northland Pines was second on the boys' side and third on the girls' side. Antigo finished fourth on the girls' side and fifth in the boys' division. Tomahawk finished fifth on the girls' side and sixth on the boys' side. Lakeland, which brought only a handful of its athletes, took eighth in the boys' division and last in the girls' field.
Though Rhinelander has seen every school in the GNC at least once during the regular season, Kraemer said the performances so far need to be taken with a grain of salt, with teams having differing agendas from meet to meet.
Because of that, Kraemer said, he could see as many as five teams having a legitimate shot of winning the boys' side of today's conference meet.
"It's going to be a close meet the whole way with Pines. We haven't seen Lakeland's best this year. They didn't bring a full team tonight. You've got to factor in Mosinee and their sprinters and Medford, too. And Medford's got a great distance program," he said. "For the boys, it's going to be a slog. It's going to be wait until the very, very end, I think. The thing we have to try to do is take away points from Pines as much as we can, or try to match Jack Gjovik and (Ryan) Muench and those guys and win the events we can win and score where we can score."
On the girls' side, Medford won the conference indoor invite but last year's conference champion, Mosinee, didn't appear to show its full hand. Beyond that, only a handful of points separated third from seventh at last year's conference meet. In that mix Antigo has reigning GNC runner of the year MacKenzie Wissbroecker in the sprints and Northland Pines has distance ace Nora Gremban. Both runners scored multiple wins on Thursday.
"For the girls, we've got to do exactly what we did tonight, just be consistent, get the wins in the relays and the throws and score points in the other events and we can put ourselves right up there," he said. "It's tough. MacKenzie Wissbroecker's going to score a lot of points for Antigo. Nora's going to score a lot of points for Pines. Can we keep up with that? I think they saw what they're capable of tonight and I hope that their confidence just continues to grow and, as we get into the meet next week, they feel comfortable, excited and push for it."
The GNC meet gets underway at 4 p.m. today at IncredibleBank Field in Minocqua.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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