Hornet girls take first at home, boys fourth

It seems fitting that the Hornets first victory of the season would come at home. Despite the previous week’s weather conditions forcing the closure of field events for the meet held in Colby on Tuesday evening, the Colby girls team still managed to take a 32-point advantage over the Abbotsford Falcons to claim first place. The boys team finished just outside the top three teams, tying Mosinee for fourth-place with 50 points.

The girls’ effort was buoyed by six first place finishes.

The 4x800-meter relay team consisting of Pearl Feiten, Casey Reynolds, Reagan Schraufnagel and Annamarie Schmitt picked up one such victory by defeating the second-place Bloomer relay by over half a minute, completing the race in 11:21.87.

Feiten also picked up a win in the 800-meter run. The sophomore edged out Mosinee’s Jena Bartnik to take first in the event, posting a time of 2:50.49.

Senior Hayden Willner proved dominant on the hurdles after winning both events on Tuesday evening. She closely battled Mosinee’s Malina Carattini for the top spot all night, narrowly defeating the Indians’ senior in both the 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles. Willner’s time of 16.75 in the 100-meter hur­dles was two-tenths of a second faster than Carattini’s and her time of 49.45 was quicker by a similar margin.

MaKenna Herrmann also grabbed a first place finish for the Hornets. She placed first in the 1600-meter run, posting a time of 6:09.75 to claim the victory.

Jazmyn Heeg had a successful day in the short distance events, posting three top-three performances. The junior took second in a close 100-meter race, where she put up a time of 13.63 seconds. She took third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 28.40 seconds.

Heeg was also part of the 4x200-meter relay that took third on Tuesday evening. She and teammates Veronica Mateer, Tori Underwood and Hayden Willner recorded a time of 1:56.70 in the event.

Also recording top-three finishes for the Hornets were Feiten in the 400-meter dash, where she finished third with a time of 1:10.16 and Reynolds and Schmitt in the 3200-meter run, where the pair came in second and third with times of 13:43.07 and 13:46.54.

The girls team had eight scoring performances in either individual or relay long distance events, an aspect that, with no field events available to be scored, helped them carry the day.

Meanwhile, it was in the sprints that the boys team found their most success on Tuesday.

Caden Healy picked up two more wins at the Hornets’ home meet, taking first in the both the 100 and 200-meter dashes. The senior put up times of 11.49 and 24.45 seconds in the two events respectively.

But Healy was not the only Colby athlete to pick up points in the short distance events. Fellow senior Nathaniel Robida claimed fourth in the 100-meter dash and third in the 200-meter dash with times of 11.78 and 25.04 seconds. Ivan Haemer placed eighth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.27 seconds and Seth Hopperdietzel and Caden Kleparski took seventh and eighth in the 200-meter dash, posting times of 25.50 and 25.74 seconds.

In the long distance events, Max Adams placed third in the 1600-meter run with a time of 5:18.01 while teammate Carter Roth took sixth in the event with a time of 5:39.06. Roth also scored for the boys in the 800-meter run by taking seventh with a time of 2:33.45.