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Section 7AA Championship Meet

In our sports preview issue earlier this spring, Wildcat girls’ track head coach Nathan Appleby said he thought the Wildcat girls would get 15 spots at the state meet this year.  Appleby was right on the mark, as six athletes will take 15 spots at state, including eight spots in a total of two relays.  The boys will send six athletes to state, for a total of seven spots, including four spots in a relay.  First and second place finishers, plus any athletes who hit certain qualifying marks, advance to the state tournament.

North Branch, on the other hand, is sending 11 athletes from the girls’ team and one from the boys’ in a combined 14 events.

The state meet will take place this weekend at St. Michael-Albertville High School.  The Class AA preliminaries (including the finals for the 3200-meter run) will be on Friday from 9 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m.  The finals for Class AA will be Saturday from 9 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m.  

More information about the state tournament, including a program that lists the athletes competing in each race, is at mshsl.com.

Girls

The Wildcat girls dominated distance running at the section tournament, sweeping the top two spots in each of the two longest races.  Seventh-grader Annika Hall won the 3,200-meter run in 11:44.15, and sophomore Kaia Osmundson came in second, ten seconds behind Hall.  Osmundson finished first in the 1,600-meter run, just a third of a second ahead of second-place Hall.  So, section 7AA will be all Wildcats in these two races.

Senior Hattie Killeen won the 100-meter hurdles in 15.81 seconds.  Another Wildcat hurdler, sophomore Ava Bringgold, nearly won the 300-meter hurdle race.  In a photo finish, she came in just 2/100 of a second behind the winner, sophomore Ella Kuhlman of North Branch.  Bringgold and Kuhlman will have two more years to battle it out for section supremacy.  Bringgold also finished second in the high jump with a leap of 5’0” to qualify for state.

The Wildcat team of junior Addyson Barrett, Killeen, Bringgold and Bene’ Smith won the 4x100 relay in 49.54 seconds, nearly 8/10 of a second ahead of the North Branch team.  The Vikings returned the favor in the 4x400 relay, winning by nearly six seconds over the Wildcats.  But the second-place finish, in 4:10.23, means the Wildcat team of Smith, Bringgold, Killeen and Osmundson will represent the Wildcats at state.

Smith nearly qualified for state in the 100-meter dash and the pole vault.  She finished just 6/100 of a second out of second place in the 100 meters and tied for third in the pole vault.  Sophomore Laura Carlson came in fourth in the shot put, about a foot out of second place.  Sophomore Catharine Larson finished sixth in the pole vault and fourth in the triple jump.

For North Branch, the girls were represented well. Esget won the 100 meter dash and was part of the 4x200 and 4x400 meter relay teams that also grabbed section titles.

The 4x400 team also featured Derrian Dick, Sophia Thorsen and Ella Kuhlman while the 4x200 squad also featured Thorsen, Sophia Benedict and Avery Smith. Thorsen, who is only an eighth grader, also qualified in the 200 meter dash after finishing in second, just 1/100 of a second behind Lizzy Fultz of Rock Ridge. Derrian Dick also earned a state spot in the 400 meter dash while sister Ella Dick grabbed a pole vaulting spot at state.

Benedict, Kuhlman, Kailie Kopp and Ella Dick finished in second in the 4x100 and qualified for state.

Madison Whitman qualified in two events for NB, the long jump and the 800 run.

Shaeyna Andreotti was hoping to qualify in both hurdle events, but she only punched her ticket in the 100 hurdles, and Asaysha Olson qualified for the triple jump for the second year in a row.

Boys

Sophomore Edmond Morris finished second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.10 seconds, just 7/100 of a second behind winner Jordan Aultman of Cloquet and will head to state.  Sophomore Blake Siefert leapt 5”10’ in the high jump, just an inch off the winning height by junior Max Williams of Rock Ridge.  Three other athletes in the section also cleared 5’10”, but Siefert heads to state as the first athlete to clear that height.  And senior Elias Hallan vaulted 12’3”, good for second in the pole vault.

The 4x100 relay team of junior Simon Strand, senior Blake Schmidt, senior Josh Byrne, and Morris finished second behind with a time of 44.25 seconds and will head to state.

Sophomore Biruk Killeen nearly finished third in two events, just missing a trip to state.  His time of 2:05.57 in the 800-meter run was two seconds out of second place.  In the 1,600-meter run, he finished 18 seconds out of second place with a time of 4:40.99.  And sophomores Nathaniel Bear and Trent Guth finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the pole vault, making the future look bright for the ‘Cats.

For North Branch, senior Nick Bovitz returns to the state meet, earning a spot in both the long jump and triple jump. He won the long jump comfortably, by nearly two feet, and then fell just a half inch shy of the championship in the triple jump but still made it to state with a personal record 43’7.5” jump.

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