Freshman Peter Warren (third from right) placed sixth in the 100-meter run, running 12.02. He had a personal best in this race as well as the 200-meter, which he finished with a time of 24.79. Warren also led the boys in the long jump.
The track season ended for most of the CCHS track team on Wednesday, May 26 at the Section 7A semifinals at UMD. A glorious spring day—sunny, breezy and warm provided a gorgeous backdrop for the over 300 athletes at this 16-team meet. The section is divided into two subsections, with the top 7 athletes in each individual event, and the top four relay teams in each relay advancing to the section finals. With almost the entire Polar League plus schools like Proctor, Marshall, Crosby- Ironton and Hinckley participating, we knew the season was coming to a close for most of the team. Our all-conference runners junior Ailee Larson and freshman Kieran Scannell should advance, a couple of other individuals had a chance, and our relay teams were a maybe. That didn’t bother us, though. With our goals of getting in shape, having fun, building a team, and improving, there was still a lot to be accomplished.
There was a touch of sadness for our seniors in their final high school race. Michelle Weitz will be especially missed. Michelle earned five letters in cross-country and four in track. When our track team was smaller, she was our best girl runner in every event from 400 to 3200 meters. She participated in the state cross-country meet last fall with our successful girls’ team. A top student, she trained mostly on her own the last two years while earning credits at UMD and St. Scholastica. Newcomers Grace Nelson and Brittany Lilienthal-Wanttie both made a lot of progress this year; we wish we had had more opportunity to work with them.
Left: Ailee Larson was part of the 4×800 relay team, but her best race was in the 800 (half-mile), which she finished in 2:26:9. Above: Kieran Scannell tries to stay with the leader in the two-mile race.
In the first race of the meet, the 4×800 relay, we had a difficult choice. The 4×800 was our best chance to get a relay team to finals, but top runners Kieran and Ailee, who had more tough races coming up, anchored them. Our plan was to have them go for it if we had a chance for a top four finish, or just hold position if we couldn’t. The girls started first. Molly Rider had a great first leg of 2:41, keeping us in contention. Michelle followed with a season best of 2:48, as did Audrey Summers with a 3:00. We were sitting in eighth, however, and I felt Ailee could only catch a couple teams, so I called her off. It was tough, as the girls finished eighth, just slower than their season best. The boys had a similar experience. David Bergstrom, Darren Waha and Ben Seaton all had their best runs of the year. When I told Kieran to hold back, he couldn’t. Instead he ran a personal best (PB) 2:07. We still finished eighth, but ran 9:19, our best time of the season by 20 seconds.
Meanwhile jumping and throwing preliminaries were going on. (Most events are just run as finals, however the shorter events have preliminary qualifying events so the competitors can face their best competition head-to-head.) Freshman Peter Warren continued his remarkable improvement by qualifying for the final eight in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, both in PB times. Grace led Brittany and Emma Nalezny in the girls’ 100, while Collin Berglund, Justin Goldstein and Cy Fortunato had good efforts behind Peter in the 100 and 200. Peter also led our boys in the long jump, followed by seventh grader Lars Scannell. Junior Captain Amber Todd just missed qualifying for the finals by five inches, while Mara MacDonell had a nice jump of 11’3”. Levi Axtell finished with an 84’4” discus throw, while Justin threw 66’ in the discus and 30’ in the shot put. Brittany completed our field event competition with a shot put of 21’.
In the hurdles, Amber was off to a good start with a chance of qualifying before she clobbered the fifth hurdle, falling and ending her chances. Mara ran well into the wind, equaling her best of 21.9. Collin continued his improvement for the boys, running a 20.2 in the high hurdles, a big PB, and a little over a second behind the leaders. Rachel Todd was our lone competitor in the 300-meter hurdles, running 61.8. In our first year of hurdling, the runners have made great progress under coach April Wahlstrom.
In the 400-meter dash, Molly led the girls with a season best of 1:11.1, while Kara Ramey and Emma Nalezny had PBs of 1:18.2 and 1:23.8 respectively. On the boys’ side, Bjorn Johnson lowered his best by two seconds to 1:01, while eighth graders Lino Rauzi and Levi Axtell improved to 1:05 and 1:08 respectively.
In the boys’ 800, Joey Chmelik just nipped Daniel Ahrendt 2:33 to 2:34 respectively. In the boys’ mile, Ben Seaton took an additional 13 seconds off his best, for a total 30-second improvement this season, running 5:23. Darren Waha had his best mile also, running 5:51. Maggie McMillan led our girls in the mile, running 6:59, just ahead of Cheyenne Sorlie and Katrina Axtell who ran 7:21 and 7:26 respectively. Michelle closed her high school career with a 13:35 in the 2 mile, placing 11th. Audrey and Rose Ingebrigtsen worked together, running 14:43 and 15:01 respectively.
Now we were ready for our big guns. Peter was our first advancer, running 12.02 in the 100, a huge improvement from last year and good enough for sixth place. He stormed the corner in the 200, qualifying in sixth place again in 24.79, the youngest boy in the finals of both events. He’s our first real sprinting star in recent history; look for him to work his way up the ladder.
The boys’ two-mile was stacked, with five of the top six distance runners in the subsection in the race, including our own Kieran Scannell and David Bergstrom. Kieran had only run the two-mile once this year, and came in with the fifth best time of the field, while David hadn’t ever run it. A mob of 30 was off at the gun. Not wanting to get trapped, Kieran ended up leading the pack for the first two laps, before he settled in with the lead group of four runners. Unfortunately, he missed a break on the sixth of eight laps, and found himself alone behind the two leaders. He closed ground in the finishing sprint, but had to settle for third in 10:26, four seconds back. Meanwhile David hung on gamely in eighth pursuing the seventh place qualifying position. Eventually he fell off, still finishing in a best of 11:15.
Thebiggest race of the day for the Vikings was Ailee in the girls’ 800 (1/2 mile). Ailee was trying to both qualify and figure out how to beat twotime Section 7A winner and recent Polar League record setter Kate Shelrud from Esko. In prior races she had been out-leaned at the finish and left on the first lap by Kate. This time she was going to stay glued to her, unless the pace was too hard. It wasn’t. Coming around the last corner Ailee picked it up a gear, opening a gap, and finished clear by two seconds in 2:26.9.
Next week is the Section 7A finals, with only the top two out of 14 qualifiers moving on. Peter will mostly be there for the experience. Kieran won’t miss the break and plans on improving on his fourth place finish last year by at least two places. And Ailee will be one of the favorites. Come on down to UMD on Friday, June 4 to cheer on your Vikings.
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