PREP TRACK & FIELD: Cards take 2nd at True Team

STILLWATER — Turning in several season-best and all-time personal record performances, the young Luverne girls’ track and field team came home from the State Class A True Team track and field meet Saturday with silver medals and a the second-place trophy.

“I am extremely proud of our girls,” exclaimed LHS head coach Craig Nelson. “On paper — based on the section meet performances — we were not the second best team there. But, despite the challenging weather conditions, our girls had an awesome meet with tremendous efforts.”

With the temperature at 39 degrees and winds blowing near 30 mph, eight section champions — plus wild-card winner Pipestone Area — competed against one another in 18 events with every place counting in the scoring.

When all the events were in, Blue Earth Area — last year’s runner-up — emerged as the new state champion, dethroning the Cardinals, who won last year’s meet with 440 points, after finishing third in 2007.

The Section 2 champion Buccaneers racked up 417 points to win the team title, while Luverne won a close battle for second, as just 23 points separated second from fifth.

The Cardinals, who had a pair of first-place performances from sophomore Katlyn Sawtelle, scored 375.5 points.

Esko was third with 361.5 points, followed closely by St. Croix Lutheran (355.5) and Chatfield (352.5).

In earning their third consecutive top-three team finish, the Cardinals needed all of the strong efforts that they received.

“Blue Earth had us by 42 points by meet’s end,” said Nelson. “But the race for second was close, so every one of our performances was important. I am just thrilled with how we competed and performed at this caliber of a meet.”

Paynesville Area (309) edged Pipestone Area (298.5) for sixth, while Breckinridge/Campbell-Tintah (241.5) and Warroad (213) completed the field.

PA, which finished second to Luverne at the Section 3 meet May 4, earned its way to the state meet by winning the wild-card competition — which is a computer-based meet, comparing all the performances of the eight second-place section teams.

“It was exciting to find out that we had won the wild-card meet and had the opportunity to compete at the state meet again,” PA head coach Todd Tinklenberg said. “I am pleased that these kids got to experience this.”

The Arrows, who were in sixth before a strong performance from Paynesville in the meet-ending 4x400-meter relay, were missing a pair of key performers.

“We did about the best we could,” noted Tinklenberg, who guided the Arrows to the state championship two years ago after qualifying as the wild-card team in 2007. “We were not able to have that kind of a day, but we were happy to be there again.”

In the boys’ meet, Section 3 champion Hills-Beaver Creek/Ellsworth/Edgerton, had good performances from all four of its relay teams and finished eighth in the final standings with 257 points.

St. Croix Lutheran ran away with the championship, accumulating 454 points.

Lanesboro/Fillmore Central claimed the runner-up trophy with 393 points, followed by Pierz (352), Redwood Valley (339), Roseau (333), Minnesota Valley Lutheran (314) and Morris (280).

Ada-Borup (204) finished behind the Patriots.

“This was a great experience for us, we had a lot of fun,” declared Patriot head coach Tom Goehle. “The competition was very stiff and the weather conditions made it harder to recover between events than normal. The kids had to exert more energy to fight the high winds.”

Sumption, Woelber, Sawtelle each win twice

Pipestone Area won four events, as the tandem of Trisha Sumption and Bree Woelber each finished first twice.

Sumption won both the discus (123 feet, 1 inch) and the shot put (37-4.25), while Woelber led a 1-2 Arrow finish in the long jump and also won the 300-meter low hurdles (46.65).

Woelber was second in the 100-meter high hurdles (15.52) and third in the 200-meter dash (27.49).

In the long jump, the Arrows scored the maximum 35 points, as Woelber (17.8.5) and freshman Kayla Spanier (16-3.5) took the top two places.

Sawtelle, meanwhile, had another stellar state meet for the Cardinals.

As a freshman last year, Sawtelle scored 69 points in the state True Team meet, getting two firsts (pole vault and 300 hurdles), a second (100 hurdles) and a third (100-meter dash).

This year, the sophomore bettered that slightly — the maximum that an individual can score is 72 (four first places x 18) — as she racked up 70 points.

Sawtelle repeated as the pole vault champ, clearing 10 feet, and she also won the 100 highs in a time of 15.43. She finished second in both the 300 lows (46.89) and the 200 dash (27.26).

“Katlyn had a super day again,” praised Nelson. “She’s pretty incredible.”

Nelson noted that Sawtelle’s high hurdle time was an all-time personal best, as was Alyssa Stegenga’s clocking of 13.11 (second-place) in the 100-meter dash, Ashley Dohlman’s 95-5 distance in the discus (seventh) and Lauren Witte’s 14-9 (11th) in the long jump.

“Getting personal records under those conditions is pretty remarkable,” Nelson said. “We just had those kinds of efforts throughout the meet, which really helped our team score.”

Stegenga also placed second in the triple jump (32-3.5), fourth in the highs (16.54) and sixth in the lows (52.68) to account for 62 of Luverne’s points.

Among the other top-eight placings by Cardinals were a trio of fourth-place relay finishes.

The quartet of Kaitlyn Wohnoutka, Melanie Van Meeteren, Josey Kockelman and Kayla Raddle ran the 4x800 in 11:01.57; the foursome of Liberty Robinson, Paige Olson, Nicole Hoff and Paige Nath clocked a 1:54.79 in the 4x200; and the unit of Olson, Hoff, Katie Shearer and Britton Dyer finished fourth in the 4x100 (55.91).

The Cardinal 4x400 team of Robinson, Wohnoutka, McKayla Schilling and Nath placed sixth with a time of 4:28.26.

Individually, Nath (64.84) and Robinson (64.96) finished seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 400-meter dash.

Schilling finished seventh in the 1,600 (5:49.15) and eighth in the 800 (2:37.39).

Seventh-graders Makayla Hohn (12:34.78) and Anna Tofteland (12:39.34) finished 7-8 in the 3,200-meter run.

Raddle was fifth in the high jump (4-6) and Stephanie Van Wyhe placed eighth in the shot put (31-3.75).

Schoonhoven gets third in both 1,600 and 3,200

While Woelber racked up 69 points with her four top-three finishes, Arrow distance runner Amanda Schoonhoven scored 32 valuable, hard-earned points with a pair of third-place finishes, clocking a time of 5:42.40 in the 1,600 and then running the 3,200 in 12:26.06.

“Those were great times, considering how strong the wind was blowing,” praised Tinklenberg. “Amanda did a nice job in both races.”

The Arrow 4x200-meter relay (Spanier, Jenna Kozlowski, Meg Viland and Brittany Evans) finished third with a time of 1:53.86, giving PA 21 points.

Jana Beranova raced to a third-place individual finish in the 100-meter high hurdles (16.44), Allyssa Tinklenberg leaped 4-6 to place seventh in the high jump and Aubrie Ford contributed 23 points with a seventh in the shot put (31-7) and an eighth in the discus (93-6).

Halden Van Wyhe gets second in boys’ 3,200

All-around senior athlete Halden Van Wyhe placed second in the boys’ 3,200 with a time of 10:48.73, giving H-BC/E/E its best finish of the day.

“Considering the conditions, that was a tremendous time,” said Goehle. “He had earlier finished sixth in the 1,600, so he gave us two gutsy performances and scored 30 points for us.”

Terence Reid placed fourth in the high jump (5-10), seventh in the long jump (19-10.75) and seventh in the 400 (53.47) to account for a team-leading 39 individual points for the Patriots.

Heath Van Wyhe’s fifth-place finish in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles (44.13) was the only other top-eight individual finish for H-BC/E/E.

All four Patriot relay teams, however, finished well, led by the fourth-place effort of the 4x800 team (Brent Kramer, Dustin Verhey, Josh Dudley and Dalton Huisman), which clocked a time of 9:03.33.

Timed at 1:40.96, the 4x200 quartet of Heath Van Wyhe, Karic Wiertzema, Dudley and Eric Teune finished fifth.

The 4x100 team (Teune, Colton Bass, Chris Luze and Taylor Leuthold) placed sixth, clocked at 48.83.

Running the 4x400 for the Patriots were Heath Van Wyhe, Wiertzema, Reid and Kramer. They finished fifth with a time of 3:43.96.

Luverne, PA and H/BC/E/E will all compete in the Sub-Section 10 meet at Pipestone Thursday.

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