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Girls

Personal best performances by senior Brenna Coyle and junior Lindsey Fowler-Wacholz earned them each a second-place finish and a trip to the state track tournament at last week's Section 7AA Championship held at Elk River High School.

Coyle tied her personal best in the discus with a throw of 117 feet, 6 inches to advance to the state tournament for the first time. Coyle just missed qualifying for state in the shot put, throwing 36 feet even to finish third competing May 28.

Saturday, May 31, Fowler-Wacholz set a personal best and tied a school record in the triple jump with a jump of 36 feet, 3.75 inches to earn her first berth in tomorrow's state tournament.

The Wildcat girls had three other athletes place at the section tournament. Chelsea Johnson came in sixth in the 800 meter run with a personal-best time of 2 minutes, 25.36 seconds. Sam Genung leaped 15 feet, 7.75 inches in the long jump, finishing seventh. And eighth-grader Whitney Tinjum's high jump of 4 feet, 10 inches earned her an eighth place finish.

The highest-finishing Wildcat relay team of the day was the 4 by 200 team of freshman Lauren Althaus, senior Tory Zais, senior Linnea Osterberg and junior Mackenzie Maher. They finished fifth with a time of 1:51.64, nearly matching their season's best performance.

"Overall, I was pleased with our performance," said Wildcat head coach Ken Orwoll. "Both Brenna and Lindsey had a good day and came through for us. We're a very young team with just a few seniors. We were encouraged by the fact that several girls, even though they didn't place, set personal records at sections."

This year's state tournament takes place starting tomorrow, Friday, June 6 at Hamline University in St. Paul. Coyle's discus competition will start at 9:45 a.m. Friday. Fowler-Wacholz's triple jump competition kicks off on Saturday, June 7 at 9 a.m.

Boys

The Wildcats 4 by 800 relay team of senior Nathan Gieske and sophomores Dom Novak, Alex Walter and Brad Johnson kept the Wildcat boys from being shut out at the section tournament. They earned the team's only points of the day by finishing fourth with a time of 8 minutes, 39.79 seconds. "As usual, Nathan had a good start in the race for us," said Orwoll, "and kept us in it. It helped to have Alex, who's been hurt the last couple of weeks, back to run in sections."

"We weren't too far off the scoreboard in a lot of events," said Orwoll. "Nathan, one of our most consistent performers, was our only senior this season. We'll be a more experienced team next season and, if we can stay healthy, we should have a much better year."

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