Tough competition brings out best efforts for Rib Lake

MARAWOOD CONFERENCE TRACK & FIELD

As expected, scoring was hard to find for Rib Lake’s track and field teams at Monday’s Marawood Conference Championships, but the Redmen continued to improve in several areas and built some momentum for the post-season, which already arrives on Monday.

The girls scored 20 points and tied for 10th place with Athens in the 12-team meet. Both teams finished ahead of scoreless Prentice in a meet won by the host Marathon Red Raiders. They scored 154.5 points to pull away from Edgar (103.75) and Abbotsford (84.25) to repeat as Marawood champs. Stratford (69), Newman Catholic (59.75), Chequamegon (52.25), Phillips (46), Wisconsin Rapids Assumption (44) and Auburndale (42.5) rounded out places four through nine.

Sophomore Olivia Lopez scored in three individual events for Rib Lake and was on one of the scoring relays.

Lopez had the top preliminary time in the 200-meter dash at 27.38 seconds, her personal-best 200 time, and wound up settling for the third-place medal in the final at 27.86 seconds. She trailed Edgar’s Morgan Schnelle (26.47) and Marathon’s Grace Kahon (27.6). In the prelims, Rib Lake’s Ryanna Schrader (33.11) and Abigail Hebda (33.74) also set their best times while placing 21st and 23rd.

Lopez earned fifth place out of 12 entrants in the triple jump competition with her best leap covering 31 feet, 7.5 inches. Stratford’s Jaidyn Wright won the title at 34-11. Lopez added an eighthplace point in the long jump at 14-7. Wright won it at 16-7. Rib Lake’s Erin Bohmback was 2 inches off her best jump at 10-6.25, good for 31st.

Rib Lake’s 400-meter relay team of Megan Yanko, Lauren Pelnis, Lopez and Amber Yanko got four points for placing fifth out of 10 teams with its time of 55.06 seconds. They edged Stratford by 0.61 seconds for that spot and trailed Mrathon (52.45), Edgar (53.1), Auburndale (53.91) and Assumption (53.93). The 800-meter team of Megan Yanko, Pelnis, Kylee Goodrich and Amber Yanko was sixth out of nine teams in 1:59.29, beating Athens (2:02.85), Phillips (2:03.33) and Chequamegon (2:06.69). Assumption won the championship in 1:52.66, followed by Newman Catholic (1:53.23), Edgar (1:53.84), Abbotsford (1:54.51) and Marathon (1:58.11).

Two more points went to Amber Yanko. The sophomore took seventh in the 100-meter dash final in a season-best 13.61 seconds. Schnelle won it in 12.76 seconds. Schrader was 19th in the prelims in a season-best 15.11 seconds and Hannah Schuh (17.74) was 27th.

Schuh just missed scoring in the discus, while improving by 3 inches with a new best throw of 80-3. She was 3 feet behind eighth-place Chloe Schafer of Stratford. Ziarra Schrader threw a personalbest 62-1 to take 19th and Grace Artz was 24th at 55 feet, also a new best distance.

In the shot put, Pelnis was the one who fell one spot shy of scoring. The senior took ninth with a throw of 30-7.25 that was just 4 inches off her season-best. Schuh was 15th at 26-11.5, while Artz was 24th with a toss of 22-2.5.

Back on the track, Goodrich was 10th in the 800-meter run at 2:47.46, 4.74 seconds away from scoring. Amy Espinoza was 15th at 3:06.68 and Sofia Fraschi was 19th at 3:46.54. All three times were season bests by significant margins. Megan Yanko was 10th in the 300-meter low hur- dles at 58.53 seconds, 2.36 seconds away from scoring. Nadia Czahor was 15th at 1:16.84 and Fraschi was 17th at 1:26.68 in the 400-meter dash.

Relays, Robisch lead boys

Rib Lake’s boys team totaled 18 points to place 11th ahead of Prentice (14.5) and got scoring from three relay teams.

The 3,200-meter team of Dominick Classen, Ben Petersen, Ryan Buehler and Donovan Sutherland started the meet with a solid fourth-place time of 9:01.71 that was the best a Rib Lake group has had this spring. They trailed Stratford (8:43.97), Chequamegon (8.53.34) and Auburndale (8:58.27) while pulling away from fifth-place Edgar (9:12.6).

Ethan Keiser, Sutherland, Noah Wiitala and Classen were fourth-place finishers in the 800-meter relay at 1:38.42, another best time for 2022 for the Redmen. They nudged past Stratford by 0.53 seconds for that spot. Chequamegon won the race in 1:36, just 0.04 seconds ahead of Edgar. Auburndale was third in 1:37.72.

Classen, Petersen, Wiitala and Sutherland finished the meet with a sixth-place finish in the 1,600-meter relay at 3:46.96. They beat Chequamegon (3:57.34), Newman Catholic (4:11.34) and Abbotsford (4:32.5) while trailing Stratford (3:36.67), Marathon (3:37.55), Edgar (3:38.55), Auburndale (3:45.16) and Phillips (3:45.54).

Theo Robisch scored in two jumping events to close out Rib Lake’s scoring. He was fifth in the high jump with a new personal-best height of 5-5. Wiitala and Classen were part of a four-way tie for 11th at 5 feet, which is a new best for Wiitala and ties Classen’s best. Robisch got the eighth-place point in the triple jump with his new personal-best distance of 38-2.5 which was nearly 2 feet better than his previous best. Damien Peterson was 18th for Rib Lake at 32-4.25. Robisch just missed scoring in the long jump, taking ninth at 17-5, 2.25 inches behind Chequamegon’s Isaiah Dietz. Sutherland was 16th at 16-2.75 and Peterson was 17th with a new best jump at 16-2.25.

Keiser was ninth and one spot shy of making the final in the 200-meter dash at 24.34 seconds. He also was 12th in the 100-meter dash prelims at 12.15 seconds, while Wiitala was 16th (12.57) and Peterson was 20th (13.11).

Buehler posted 11th-place times of 2:18.58 in the 800-meter run and 5:07.07 in the 1,600-meter run. Freshman Elijah Scott was 18th in the 1,600 (5:26.18) and 19th in the 800 (2:32.37) with new best times. Buehler’s 1,600 time was faster and his 800 time was right there as well.

Branden Heiser was 17th in the shot put (34-1.75) and 19th in the discus at a personal-best 93-1. Xavier Johnson (52-2) and Peter Walters (50-1) were 30th and 31st in the discus and Walters (22-3) was 29th in the shot put.

Stratford dethroned Edgar atop the boys standings 126.5-116, while Auburndale was third with 106 points and Marathon was fourth with 97. Athens scored 65 points, followed by Chequamegon (49), Phillips (31), Assumption (28), Abbotsford (27) and Newman Catholic (24).

Regional next

Rib Lake is one of 11 teams assigned to Monday’s WIAA Division 3 Flambeau regional, which is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Along with the host Falcons, Gilman, Bruce, Cadott, Ladysmith, Lake Holcombe-Cornell, Owen-Withee, Phillips, Prentice and Thorp are the others.

The top four finishers in each event will advance to the May 26 WIAA Divi- sion 3 sectional in Colfax, where the top four in each event will qualify for the June 3-4 state meet at UW-La Crosse.

Ladysmith was the 2021 girls regional champion, while Cadott is the defending boys champion.

Megan Yanko gets out of the starting block during Monday’s girls 800-meter relay.NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD/TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH