’Cats Tangle with Tough Competition
With three of Class B’s top ten teams from last year’s state track meet in attendance, the Central City Invitational provided a true measuring stick as to where St. Paul’s track athletes are at the midway point of the 2023 season. Fortunately, most of the Wildcats were up to the challenge and posted good times and marks during windy conditions on Friday.
Defending Class B state runner-up Waverly dominated the boys’ portion of the meet with 135 points, with Grand Island Northwest coming in second with 106. St. Paul finished in sixth place with forty-eight points.
While there was a bounty of personal bests recorded, St. Paul picked most of its points in the field events, particularly in the horizontal jumps. Jonah Paulsen won the triple jump with a massive leap of 44-02. John Placke had the best triple jump of his career, going 40-01.5, good for fifth. Paulsen was also second in the long jump, going 20-11.5. Trenton Hansen placed fourth in that event with a personal- best jump of 20-11.
Luke Porter was the team’s other event winner on the day, taking top honors in the discus with a throw of 152-05.
On the track, Gage Sack was fourth in both the 100- (11.11) and 200- meter (23.54) dashes. Sack also anchored the 400 meter relay team to a fourth-place finish in a season- best time of 45.64. Others on that relay included Cody Kuszak, Paulsen, and Hansen. The Wildcats also scored points in the 3200-meter relay when the team of Chris Thomas, Jack Thede, Kaleb Baker, and Jackson Kramer crossed the line in fifth place in 9:12.79.
Others competing for the Wildcats last week included Porter, Hirschman, and Hagen in the shot put; Hagen and Hirschman in the discus; Max Swanson in the high jump; Sack in the long jump, where he took seventh with a leap of 20-05.5; Swanson in the triple jump; Brecken Kavan in the pole vault, where he came in eighth; Placke and Hansen in the 100, where they placed seventh and eighth, respectively; Shafer and Kuszak in the 200; Kuszak, Kramer, and Schwartz in the 400; Thomas and Garrett Snyder in the 800; Baker and Lopez in the mile; Snyder in the two-mile; Bradyn Hazen in the 110meter hurdles; Hazen and Kavan in the 300-meter hurdles; and the miles relay team of Shafer, Thoams, Schwartz, and Hazen, which came in seventh.
“You either had to be a tremendous athlete, a terrific competitor, or both to come home with a medal from this meet,” commented St. Paul Head Coach Matt Koehn-Fairbanks. “Fortunately, we have a good number of those kids on our team right now, and we held our own against some outstanding competition.
“We talked to the athletes before getting off the bus about using this tough competition to push them to do their best and, by-and-large, that is what happened. Even in the events we didn’t bring home medals, we had a lot of personal best performances. This meet was a good measure of where we are at the midpoint of our season.”
On the women’s side, Grand Island Northwest and Waverly battled to a first-place tie with 147 points. The Wildcats placed seventh with twenty-four points. Only five Wildcats brought home medals on the girls’ side against a stacked field featuring many of the top ten performers in the state.
The 3200-relay team of Sidney Gawrych, Kamden Sack, Natalie Poss, and Charlee Wegner was second in 10:32.80. Gawrych, Sack, and Wegner were later joined by Gracie Mudloff to take second in the 1600-meter relay in 4:32.84. Sack picked up an individual third-place medal in the 800-meter run in a personal-best time of 2:31.0, while Wegner was sixth in the 400 in 1:06.54.
St. Paul’s final point came from Poss’s sixth place run in the 1600 meters in 6:28.79.
Others competing for the Wildcats included Makenna Beberniss, Emma Elstermeier, and Harlee Behring in the shot put; Matti Stepanek, Elstermeier, and Gracie Kelley in the discus; Jenna Jakubowski, Jess Vetick, and Alex Obermiller in the long jump; Sam Obermiller and Jakubowski in the triple jump; Karlie Vieth, Poss, and Ava Vech in the pole vault; Gracie Mudloff, Alex Obermiller, and Vetick in the 100; Mudloff, Alex Obermiller, and Jada Alberti in the 200; Carly Stepanek in the 400; Gawrych in the 800; and the 400-meter relay team of Alex Obermiller, Vetick, Sam Obermiler, and Mudloff.
“Our women’s team also gave good effort in all of their events,” Coach Koehn-Fairbanks said. “This meet just had a lot of girls that are near the top in Class B in their events, but, once again, we came home with a lot of personal-best marks on the day.”
“You either had to be a tremendous athlete, a terrific competitor, or both to come home with a medal from this meet.”
- Matt Koehn-Fairbanks