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Senior triple jumper Andy Olness and junior sprinter Christian Swanberg represented the Wildcats at the AA state championships June 9 and 10 at Hamline University.

Swanberg ran in both the 100 meter and 200 meter dashes. Swanberg ran well in the 200 preliminaries on Friday, finishing second in his heat to automatically qualify for the finals. Swanberg finished ninth in the finals, with a time of 23.65 seconds, earning a medal and a trip to the winner’s podium. “Things didn’t go real well for Christian in the 100,” said Wildcat head coach Ken Orwoll. “It could be any number of things – the newness of being at state, tenseness, the fact that everybody there is so good. But it was gratifying to see him come back and run as well as he did in the 200.”

Olness triple-jumped over 40 feet, but that was over three feet behind the state champion and well back in the pack. “Andy really had to work through the hurt,” said Orwoll. “He was having problems getting his full range of motion. And there were so many good triple jumpers at state this year. Considering everything he had to battle through, Andy did very well.”

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