Small track crew opens season at Ripon

RIPON — The Rhinelander High School track team was far from full strength for its first competition of the season, but the team had a handful of individual standouts in the Princeton/Green Lake Invite held Friday at Ripon College. 

Much of the team was unavailable during Rhinelander’s spring break, but the Hodags still managed to take fifth out of 15 teams in the boys’ division with a roster of 13 athletes. Five of the six Hodag girls who competed scored points as Rhinelander took 11th in that division. 

“I was happy with both the boys and girls teams. We weren’t taking a big crew with us. We had 13 boys and six girls on the bus and, at the end of the night with that limited group to be in the middle of the pack team-wise when there are 15 teams there to compete … the fact that we were able to pick up that many with that small group feels good,” coach Andy Wyss said.

Sophomore Matthew Haselton, who was part of Rhinelander’s sectional-qualifying 4x200-meter relay team a season ago, got off to a strong start to his year by scoring in all four of his events. Haselton came home third in the 200-meter dash (24.66 seconds), was seventh in the triple jump (38 feet, 4 inches) and eighth in the 60-meter dash (7.61). Additionally he was on the 4x200 relay squad that took sixth with Paul Denis, Konner Bex and Eric Parish (1:45.60).

“Matthew ran and jumped pretty well,” Wyss said. “He was, I think, maybe frustrating some of our older runners because he was putting down some pretty good times. And he wasn’t in the fast heats, but he won those heats he was in and ended up in good placing.”

    Rhinelander’s Marsadies Williams competes in the long jump during the Princeton/Green Lake Invitational at Ripon College Friday, March 20. Williams, a freshman, placed third in the event and finished in the top seven in all four of his events as the Hodags took 11th as a team. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

On the girls’ side, freshman Marsadies Williams made an impressive debut. Brand new to the sport, Williams scored in all four of her events, highlighted by a third-place showing in the long jump (15-11 1/4). She took sixth in both the 200 meters (29.43) and the pole vault (8-0) and was seventh in the 60 meters (8.52).

“That was a crazy performance,” Wyss said. “She came in with a lot of timidness, kind of anxiety, having never really experienced a track meet before, a lot of nerves. I just tried to reiterate that this is just a fancy practice and you’ve had a week and a half of training. We’re just learning here and she did so well. I was incredibly impressed. So she’s got a great, bright year ahead.”

The lone returning sectional and state qualifier in attendance for the Hodag girls, senior Libbey Buchmann, scored a third-place finish in the shot put (33-10 1/4) as she looks to return to form just six months after ACL surgery. While still not up to 100%, Wyss said it was a promising start for one of the team’s leaders.

“It’s just good to see Libbey back out there again,” he said. “We kind of decided that she would come with, maybe take it easy, just power throw. I think she’s going to be disappointed at those marks because they’re not going to equal a full throw, but I mean, she came in there and threw the shot again for the first time in a while, and that had to have felt good, and, and kind of crazy that she took third place off of just power throws, with not a lot behind them.”

    Rhinelander’s Dean Gillingham competes in the 1,600-meter run during the Princeton/Green Lake Invitational at Ripon College Friday, March 20. Gillingham finished third in the event. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

The best finish of the day on the boys’ side for Rhinelander came in the 4x800 relay, despite having none of last year’s sectional squad in the event. With Greyson Gremban and Shawn Denis lost to graduation and juniors Avrom Barr and Jackson Weinzatl on break, the Hodags turned to a squad that included sophomores Paul Denis and Dean Gillingham, and juniors Michael Brunette and Jonathan Campbell to turn in a runner-up finish (9:36.60). 

Additionally Gillingham came home third in the 1,600 (5:07.72) and Campbell was fifth in the 800 (2:23.96). 

“We were kind of wondering how the distance boys would respond this year after we lost some heavy hitters last season, and some of these young guns are ready to get in and step up,” Wyss said. “The 4x8 started out and we kind of fell right to the back of the pack. Throughout that whole race, each guy that was running just picked off a little more time and we end up second in that race. Dean came back, ran a really good mile, 5:07. That’s a good place to start for him. That’s pretty good, indoors.”

    Rhinelander’s Kara Monk competes in the 1,600-meter run during the Princeton/Green Lake Invitational at Ripon College Friday, March 20. Monk finished second in the event. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Kara Monk scored Rhinelander’s best finish on the girls’ side, coming home second in the 1,600 with a lifetime-best performance of 5:49.81. The junior figures to give the Hodags a lift in the distance events this spring coming in off a breakout season in cross country last fall.

“Watching Kara run, you can tell she was just feeling good. Looking at her, she was relaxed and just cranking it out,” Wyss said. “And then on maybe that, fifth or sixth lap, I looked at her in the eyes and she just had this, this game face on and I was just like, ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t want to mess with her right now. She’s in the zone.’ She got done with that race and had a big smile and thought, ‘I could probably go even faster.’”

Sophomore Addison Fish added a seventh-place finish for the Hodag girls in the triple jump (28-8) while freshman Noelle Mayo came home eighth in the 800 (2:58.65). 

On the boys’ side junior Landon Catlin scored in both horizontal jumping events, taking sixth in the triple jump (38-9) and eighth in the long jump (18-0 1/2). Senior Sam Zwaard was sixth in the 200 meters (25.17). 

Friday’s meet was originally scheduled to be held Wednesday, March 18, but was pushed back two days because the majority of schools in the field — including Rhinelander — did not have the minimum number of practices required by the WIAA to compete March 18 after a pair of snowstorms earlier in the month canceled a pair of practice days.

Rhinelander will have much closer to a full lineup this afternoon as it travels to Ashland for the Oredocker Large School Invite and on Thursday when it will take part in the Northland Pines Indoor Invite in Eagle River.

“I think we’re going to favor the juniors and seniors that have been around the block before and they can kind of pick up and they kind of know what they’re doing,” Wyss said of the lineup for today’s meet. “But that’ll be another haul for us. You know, when you think about the distance from Ripon up to Ashland, that’s a lot of travel in both directions, but they got a great facility. And I know that the people that were on spring break will be ready to go at it. And then Northland Pines, nice close to home for, hopefully a lot of the underclassmen to get some experience.”

In the interest of full disclosure, the River News notes that the author of this story has a family member who is an athlete on the RHS track team. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].