Team Review: RHS Track & Field

It’s safe to say that, up until recently, Rhinelander has not been considered as a strong track and field program. Prior to a breakthrough Great Northern Conference title in 2019, the last time the Hodag boys’ track team won a conference championship was 1967.

Team success was even more fleeting on the girls’ side. While there have been a few standouts and state podium finishers, the Hodags had never had a finish better than mid-pack at a conference meet. 

Until this year. 

2025 will likely be remembered as a seminal year for the Rhinelander High School track program. The Hodags lifted both the boys’ and girls’ GNC titles. The boys added a regional championship, while the girls advanced five entries to the WIAA state meet. 

Hodag head coach Aaron Kraemer has seen plenty of success since taking over the program in 2019 but, with the largest roster in his tenure and some key additions to the coaching staff, Rhinelander’s track program went to the next level this season.

“For us both to win it on the same night, I’m not sure how many times it’s been done in our conference. It can’t be very many and so this one this one is extra sweet because of that,” Kraemer said when the Hodags nabbed both conference titles in Mosinee May 22. “Just to see the looks on their faces after we won tonight, especially with winning both, and getting some honors — athletes of the year on both sides — it’s really, really special.”

Here are five key storylines from the season.

Wyss factor

The Hodags bolstered their coaching staff with two additions who made an immediate impact, bringing former Three Lakes and Marshfield Columbus track coaches Andy and Jayme Wyss into the fold. 

The husband-wife pair made an immediate impact. Andy Wyss was named co-head coach and oversaw the girls’ program while also working with horizontal jumpers and sprinters. Jayme Wyss worked with the distance runners and, one of her specialty events, the pole vault — where she won a World Masters Championship in late March. 

“(I’m) very thankful that he and Jayme came to town this year and we’re helping us out. You can tell that they’re passionate about track and field. They care about it, and they want to be successful. And our kids see the same exact thing,” Kraemer said during the team’s banquet earlier last month, noting the this year’s staff was the best he’s been a part of in his tenure at Rhinelander. 

Andy Wyss noted there was pressure joining a larger program, that already had experienced some success as opposed to building small-school programs from the ground up, like he and Jayme Wyss did in their previous stops.

“I felt a little pressure coming into this thing because I knew that what was already laid was a great foundation that we needed to grow even better,” he said. “And there was a lot of pressure behind that. I want to thank Coach Kraemer because he’s really given me free reign … When the head honcho can show that much faith in you and give you that free reign, it allows me to take a breath, breathe a little easier and kind of do the work that we needed to do to get going.”

Girls make history

    In this May 30, 2025 file photo, Rhinelander’s Aila Bergman competes in the 300-meter hurdles in a WIAA Division 2 sectional meet in Durand. Bergman broke her own school record in the event on three separate occasions this season and finished fourth in the event at the WIAA state meet. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

The girls’ squad showed promise right out of the gate, taking second the Ashland Indoor and winning the Northland Pines Indoor. That success carried into the outdoor season where it became clear that Rhinelander was a contender for the GNC title after finish fourth the previous year. 

Though Lakeland and 2024 champion Tomahawk lurked, Rhinelander ultimately won the conference title thanks to a strong meet that included victories in eight events — including three conference records —and 14 top-three finishes overall. 

“I felt good about our ability as the girls, but we had seen some good things out of Lakeland and Tomahawk,” Andy Wyss said. “Even coming up halfway through the meet when the scores were real tight, you kind of wonder, like, you know, do we have the pieces to pull it out? Then it comes out after everything comes in, it came across very convincing.”

Individually junior Libbey Buchmann won GNC field athlete of the year as she tied the conference record in the discus (126 feet, 2 inches) and added a win in the shot put. Junior Aila Bergman took down the conference record in the 300-meter hurdles (46.97 seconds) and won the 100 hurdles as well while Macy Myers broke the conference record in pole vault (11-3). 

Additionally the Hodags scored wins in the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 relays. 

“Everybody top to bottom, we showed up, showed up really big. In all event areas, well-trained, well-coached, and we just showed up,” Andy Wyss said. “We picked up points here and there a little more than we thought we would have just it all kind of came together.” 

Boys win double titles

    In this May 22, 2025 file photo, Rhinelander’s Greyson Gremban leads Tomahawk’s Sam Zastrow, and teammates Avrom Barr and Shawn Denis, to the finish line of the 800-meter run during the GNC championship track meet in Mosinee. Gremban, Barr and Denis were part of a strong distance crew for the Hodag boys that racked up points throughout the season. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Good things seem to come in threes for the Hodag boys. Rhinelander has won its three conference titles in three-year increments — 2019, 2022 and 2025. 

Just as it was in 2022, this year’s conference title served as a bit of redemption for the Hodags who, while battling injury finished fourth at last year’s conference meet — eight points behind co-champs Northland Pines and Lakeland. 

The Hodags won five events on the boys’ side and, like the girls, had 14 top-three finishes. Senior Greyson Gremban earned GNC runner of the year thanks to his sweep of the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 meters. Logan Schwinger picked up a win in shot put and the Hodags added a win in the 4x100 relay.

“Even with some of the adversity that we had, we had guys pick us up all around the shop tonight and do things that we weren’t counting on coming in, which was what we needed,” Kraemer said. 

The Hodag boys added one more feather to their cap five days later when they edged Hayward by 11 points for the regional title — sending 12 entries to sectionals in the process. 

“The boys winning it means that we got a lot of guys through to the sectional meet, which is exactly what we wanted to do,” Kraemer said. 

Individual highlights

It’s difficult to list all the individual accomplishments the Hodags had this year, because there were so many, but there were several notable moments to highlight. 

Bergman was the Hodags’ lone podium finisher at the WIAA state meet, placing fourth in the 300-meter hurdles with a school-record time of 44.79 seconds. She broke that record a number of times during the school year, including at sectionals when she punched her ticket to state. That was a bit of redemption after committing a false start in the finals of the 100 hurdlers that cost her a chance to run in La Crosse in that event. 

Bergman was the ninth-fastest qualifier in La Crosse, making championship Saturday. From the inside line, Bergman ended up in a five-way battle for second behind D2-state record holder Elletta Uddin of Osceola. 

“It feels really relieving, honestly,” Bergman said after finishing fourth at state. “I mean, I haven’t been able to PR like, and get like the time that I really wanted, and just being able to be up there on the podium and PR with all those girls is really fun and exciting.”

    In this June 6, 2025 file photo, Rhinelander’s Macy Myers competes in pole vault at the WIAA state track meet in La Crosse. Myers broke the school record in the event five times during the 2025 season and placed eighth in the event at state. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

A review of the girls’ season could not be complete without discussing the unprecedented success the pole vault program had in its first year under Jayme Wyss’s tutelage. Going into the year, the school record was 8 feet, 3 inches and had stood for nearly 15 years. It fell during the first meet of the year as Emeline Hintz cleared 9-3. It was subsequently broken five more times and sits now at 11-3 following Myers’s performance at conference. Myers had a chance to up it one more time, but missed out at 11-6 at state as she settled for an eighth-place finish with a mark of 11-0. Hintz cleared 10 feet at sectionals, missing out on a ticket to state on a tiebreak based on total misses. 

“There’s still that first year kind of, even though they’re sophomores, there’s that kind of freshman vibe to them. So to be able to lock in and hit the heights they need to hit, they both vaulted well,” Andy Wyss said following sectionals.

Not to be outdone, Rhinelander had a strong sprints group that included Bergman and Myers along with senior Lexi Bishop, junior Violet Biolo, sophomores Lucy Eddy and Shyanne Hueckstaedt and freshman Ellie Cummings. The group broke the school records in the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 at sectionals, qualifying for state in all three events.

The lone state qualifier on the boys’ side was senior Truman Lamers, who fought through injury to make it in the high jump with a mark of 6-2 at sectionals. Though Lamers, who finished runner-up in the event at conference, bowed out at state without clearing the opening height, Kraemer said the achievement for him was finishing his senior year in La Crosse.

“I just wanted him to have this experience and come down here and be able to jump in front of all these people and show what he can do,” he said. “I’m extremely proud of him.”

While they didn’t make it to state out of an extremely fast sectional the Hodag distance crew — led by Gremban, fellow senior Shawn Denis and sophomores Avrom Barr and Jackson Weinzatl — was vital in the Hodags’ run to the conference title. 

In additional to Gremban’s sweep of the distance events at conference, Barr was runner-up in the 1,600 and 3,200 and placed third in the 800. Denis finished fourth in the 800 and Jackson Weinzatl added a sixth-place run in the 3,200. Together, they were part of a 4x800 squad that placed second at regionals and sixth at sectionals. 

The Hodags also had an extremely deep group in the throws — led by Schwinger and fellow seniors Reid Schultz and Bo Stott. Schwinger, Schultz and Stott finished 1-3-5 at conference in the shot put. They all qualified for sectionals in that event, and Stott made it in the discus. 

What’s next

While the Hodag boys will have some big shoes to fill on the boys’ side, graduating six sectional qualifiers, they will have a number of pieces returning, including a fairly young sprinter group that featured sectional qualifiers in seniors-to-be Ben Olson, Sam Zwaard, Evan Shoeder and Cyrus Leisure, along with junior-to-be Landon Catlin and sophomore-to-be Matthew Haselton. Senior-to-be Myles Eagleson will also likely be a major contributor next spring after qualifying for sectionals in both the long and triple jump, while Barr and Weinzatl will be back off the Hodag boys’ 4x800 squad. 

The girls’ side has much more talent returning with only two sectional qualifiers — Bishop and high jumper Callie Hoerclher — lost to graduation. 

Though Bergman was the only Hodag to reach the podium at state, Andy Wyss said getting a large contingent of athletes to La Crosse will hopefully inspire more to follow in those footsteps — and perform better when they get to state. 

“I’m hoping they’re hungry,” he said. “I’m hoping they think that, we didn’t come and do what we wanted to do. We need to do what we can to get back here and get another shot at this. I hope that’s the attitude that they’re taking out.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].