team preview: RHS Track & Field

Aaron Kraemer’s five seasons at the helm of the Rhinelander High School track and field program have yielded plenty of success. 

The Hodag boys have won two conference titles in that time span and have never finished lower than fourth in the conference. Success for the Hodag girls has started to come around as well. The team has had three individual podium finishes at state in that span and, with a fourth-place finish in the GNC last year, posted its best conference team performance since the mid-1990s. 

With numbers continuing to rise and new faces on the coaching staff, Kraemer said he’s excited to see what the 2025 season has in store for his Hodags.

“I think the sky’s the limit for this team. It’s a really great group,” he said.

The Hodags added to their staff this year, bringing in former Three Lakes coaches Andy and Jayme Wyss. Andy Wyss will serve as the girls’ head coach and focus on sprints and horizontal jumps. Jayme Wyss, who earlier this year set an American record for her age group in the heptathlon, will focus on distance and vertical jumps. While still the boys’ head coach, Kraemer’s primary focus will be with the throwers. Rod Olson returns to work with the hurdlers, Drake Biolo will work with the sprinters and Bennett Rozek will help with the distance runners. 

“Having two coaches coming in who have a lot of experience along with Bennett Rozek, who has experience, running at (Stevens Point), running at (UW-) Eau Claire, with us last year, I think we’re going to be formidable,” Kraemer said last Saturday after the first week of practice concluded. “I think our boys and girls are going to do really well. I just can’t say enough how fun it’s been able to see to watch them grow this week and it in a different settings. Things change this year when new coaches come in and that change’s sometimes hard for it to adjust to, but as a week went on, they adjusted and did a great job.”

Though the boys finished fourth in the GNC last year, they were a whisker away from perhaps their third conference title in the last five seasons. They led the conference meet with three events remaining before getting passed down the stretch as they finished only eight points behind GNC co-champions Lakeland and Northland Pines. 

Rhinelander has nine returning all-conference athletes from that squad and has strengths in a number of different events. Though senior Zach Germain, who finished third in the 100 meters at conference last year, did not go out for the squad this season, the Hodags have two sprinters back in juniors Ben Olson and Sam Zwaard who were on the conference-championship squad in the 4x100 relay at conference and were on the sectional-qualifying 4x100 and 4x200 squads. 

    In this May 23, 2024 file photo, Rhinelander’s Myles Eagleson competes in the long jump during a WIAA Division 2 sectional track meet in Colby Thursday, May 23. Eagleson is the defending Great Northern Conference champion in the triple jump and finished second in the long jump at conference a season ago. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Junior Myles Eagleson returns after winning the conference title in the triple jump last year and taking second in the long jump. He placed in the top six in both of those events at regionals and took seventh in the long jump at sectionals. Senior Truman Lamers is back after injury hampered him late last season. He took fourth at conference in both the high jump and triple jump before finishing fifth in both of those events at regionals — finishing one spot shy of advancing to sectionals. 

Seniors Logan Schwinger and Reid Schultz look to follow-up breakthrough junior campaigns in the throwing events in which they both qualified for sectionals in the shot put. Schwinger was the runner-up in that event at conference and added a third-place effort in discus while Schultz was fourth at conference and regionals in the shot. 

Junior Connor Dumpprope is back after taking third at conference in the 300 hurdles last year and the Hodags are eager to see what a healthy distance squad will do. Seniors Shawn Denis and Greyson Gremban, and sophomores Jackson Weinzatl and Avrom Barr were second last spring in the 4x800 despite Gremban missing a number of meets to start the year with a foot injury. Gremban, Barr and Weinzatl were all members of the RHS cross country team that quailed for state last fall.

“Last year, we were very, very close to win the conference championship and I think that some of the pieces that we needed are starting to show up,” Kraemer said. “We have a lot of veterans on the team that are going lead the this group to their success. It’s always good to see the veterans back that first we can see what they’re able to do and see what they accomplish, but another story for our team is a bunch of young talent from last year that was on our team, but now is growing into themselves becoming fasting and putting themselves in the conversation in their own right.”

Like the Hodag boys, the girls’ squad also returns nine all-conference athletes from last year, led by a pair of school record-holders in juniors Aila Bergman and Libbey Buchmann. 

    In this May 23, 2024 file photo, Rhinelander’s Aila Bergman heads to the finish of the 100-meter hurdles during a WIAA Division 2 sectional track meet in Colby. Bergman qualified for state in that event last year and is one of the top returning athletes for the Hodag girls’ team. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Bergman won the GNC titles in the 100 and 300 hurdles last year and made it to state in the 100 hurdles, where she finished 16th. She missed qualifying for state in the 300 hurdles by 0.02 seconds despite breaking her own school record in that event (46.70). 

Buchmann broke a 25-year-old school record in the discus, throwing it 133 feet last May in Antigo. She was the conference and regional champion in that event and went on to place fourth in the state, after taking sixth in the event at state as a freshman.

The Hodags also bring back three fourths of the 4x100 relay team that made it to state last year — with the lone exception being exchange student Lena Timphus. Senior Lexi Bishop leads that group while also eyeing all-conference and sectional qualifying marks in the open sprints. She was fourth at the GNCs in the 100 last year and took fifth and seventh, respectively, in the 100 and 200 at regionals. Junior Violet Biolo and sophomore Olivia Ruetz not only return off that squad, but were also part of a conference championship and sectional-qualifying effort in the 4x400 relay with another sophomore, Lucy Eddy.

Additionally the Hodags bring three runners — Shyanne Hueckstaedt, Karly Gillingham and Emma Deede — back from a squad that was runner-up in the 4x200 at conference. Senior Reese Gehrig was an alternate on the state relay and ran with Hueckstaedt and Deede in the 4x200 at regionals.

Other notable returning athletes include senior Averie West, who took fourth in the 100 hurdles at conference last year; former sectional qualifier Eva Heck, a junior who was fourth in high jump at conference last year; and sophomore Kara Monk, who took fifth in the 1,600 at regionals.

“There’s four or five girls that are in the low fives (for 40-yard dash times) and we’re building toward something special with the girls,” Kraemer said. “When you look at numbers alone, this is the largest girls’ team we’ve ever had. We have over 50 girls on our team … there’s certainly a buzz in the air around the girls’ team.”

The team began to see what some of its athletes on the squad could do in competition last night at the Wisconsin Rapids Indoor, though the team was short-handed for that event with a number of athletes and coaches gone on spring break. Kraemer said the team will get a better look at its new and returning athletes this coming Tuesday at the Oredocker Invite in Ashland and the GNC Indoor Invite at Northland Pines April 3. Additionally, a handful of athletes will take part in the state indoor invite April 5 in Whitewater. 

The outdoor schedule will begin April 10 and 11 with separate meets for the girls and boys at Wausau West. After that, the team is slated to have two outdoor meets a week leading right into championship season. 

That’s not to say that all the Hodags’ top athletes will compete in every meet this year — or take part in a full program if they do. Kraemer said the uptick on the Hodags’ outdoor schedule serves two purposes. First, it allows the 100-plus athletes on the team an opportunity to compete on a nearly weekly basis and second, allows the coaches to manage the workloads for some of the team’s top-end competitors.

“I think the most important thing is to try to get our in our conference and regional athletes into one meet a week, but also to limit the pound on their bodies,” Kraemer said. “You know look at a kid like Truman, maybe he’s high jumping one week and then maybe he’s triple jumping another meet in that week to just try to limit the amount of pounding. I think that last year maybe that was one of the causes that led him to start getting hurt. We need to just take care of our athletes and prepare them the best to get them ready for the premier meets of the season.”

This year’s conference meet will take place May 20 in Mosinee. While Kraemer said it’s too early to handicap the entire conference, last year was a example of how strong the GNC was from the top down.

“The good thing is that there is competition on a conference and we do have a lot of coaches and athletes that are very proud to try to fight for the Great Northern Conference championship,” he said. “I think we have a very, very good shot to do that — both with the girls and the boys. We’ll see how things fair season goes on how everybody grows and where we put ourselves at the end of the season.”

The Hodags will also have a little added motivation on the line this year as they will host WIAA Division 2 regionals at Mike Webster Stadium May 27. The eight-team regional will include a strong field with Ashland, Hayward, Lakeland, Northland Pines, Northwestern, Rice Lake and Spooner — all of whom will be looking to earn tickets to sectionals, which will be staged May 30 at Durand-Arkansaw High School, roughly 30 miles southwest of Eau Claire. 

“We’re excited to host a home meet that means something that’s for sure,” Kraemer said, noting the last big meet the Hodags hosted was the Great Northern Conference meet back in 2016. “I think it’s just a great opportunity for our kids to do that. Little nerve-wracking for coaches cause you want to make sure everything’s perfect for a meet like that, because it means so much to these kids.”

Regionals will be one of three meets the Hodags host this spring. The others are the Hodag Hybrid meet April 11 and the Hodag Invite May 15.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected]. 

TEAM SCHEDULE

Date    Event    Time

3/20    Wisconsin Rapids Indoor    —

3/25    at Ashland Indoor    4 p.m.

4/3    GNC Indoor Invite  at Northland Pines    4:30 p.m.

4/5    State Indoor at Whitewater    9 a.m.

4/10    Wausau West Girls Outdoor    4 p.m.

4/11    Wausau West Boys Outdoor    4 p.m.

4/15    HODAG HYBRID    4 p.m.

4/17    Marathon Invite    4 p.m.

4/24    Northland Pines Relays    4 p.m.

4/29    Wausau East Invite    4 p.m.

5/2    Kaukauna Invite    4 p.m.

5/6    Lakeland Invite    4 p.m.

5/9    Otto Bacher at Merrill    5 p.m.

5/13    Tomahawk Invite    4:15 p.m.

5/15    HODAG INVITE    4 p.m.

5/20    GNC Meet at Mosinee*    4 p.m.

5/22    Dale Peterson Invite at Antigo    4 p.m.

5/27    WIAA REGIONALS AT RHINELANDER    4 p.m.

5/30    WIAA Sectionals at Durand    4 p.m.

6/6-7    WIAA State at La Crosse    9:30 a.m.

* Conference meets | HOME MEETS IN CAPS