Relay success, individual distance points push Rib Lake boys to 5th
MERRILL BOYS INVITE
Rib Lake’s three relay teams accounted for 24 points, three runners combined for 18 points in the 800-meter run and Theo Robisch placed in three events as the Redmen earned a fifth-place finish at Tuesday’s Merrill Blue Jay Indoor Track Invitational.
The Redmen compiled 72.5 team points in the meet to outscore Rhinelander (52), Wittenberg-Birnamwood (36) and Prentice (14.5). Edgar edged past Wausau East 137-131 to win the meet, while Merrill just got by Waupaca 82-79 for third.
The team of Ryan Buehler, Donovan Sutherland, Kaleb Scott and Jack Regier started the track competition by holding off Wausau East by 2.2 seconds to win the 20-lap relay in a time of 8:56.57. Those two teams were well ahead of third-place Edgar (9:14.84). The 10-lap relay combination of Ethan Keiser, Sutherland, Scott and Dominick Classen finished 0.34 seconds ahead of Waupaca to claim second place in its race, 3.81 seconds behind East’s winning team.
The six-lap relay team sprinted to third place. Keiser, Noah Wiitala, Logan Schmidtfranz and Classen finished in 2:10.21, just ahead of fourth-place Merrill (2:11.57) and just behind second-place Wausau East (2:08.12). Edgar won easily in 2:01.29.
Sutherland led Rib Lake’s 800-meter trio with a second-place time of 2:25.31, while Regier was right behind him at 2:25.78. Elijah Scott was fifth in 2:29.65. Waupaca’s Owen Lencki won the race in 2:22.61. Scott added a fourth-place finish in the 1,600-meter run with his time of 5:32.66, while teammate Connor Highfill was fifth in 5:41.31. Lencki won that race too in 5:17.98. Highfill scored again in the 3,200-meter race, finishing fourth out of six runners in 13:33.75. Waupaca’s Ian Sherman won in 11:53.9.
Classen added five points by taking fourth in the 200-meter dash in 26.37 seconds, 1.2 seconds behind winner Brian Ball of Merrill. Teammate Ben Petersen was 13th in 28.24 seconds and Gus Zuleger was 17th in 30.99 seconds. Kaleb Scott tacked on three points for Rib Lake with his sixth-place time of 1:01.94 in the 400-meter dash. Petersen was 10th at 1:03.47 and Zuleger was 16th at 1:06.36.
Robisch did his scoring in the meet’s three jumping events. He placed fourth in the triple jump with a distance of 38 feet, 3.5 inches, which is a new personal best and nearly 4 feet better than what he hit a week earlier at Marshfield. Edgar had the top three finishers in the event, led by Teegan Streit’s jump of 421.5. Robisch went 17-11.5 in the long jump to place sixth and go 5.25 inches farther than he did at Marshfield. Rhinelander’s Zachary Germain got off a 20-foot jump to win the competition. Zuleger was 16th at 14-9.
Robisch added a half-point by tying Prentice’s Kal Esterholm for eighth place in the high jump. Both cleared the bar at 5-2. Classen placed 10th at 5 feet and Wii- tala was 12th by getting over at 4-10. The top four jumpers cleared 5-6 with Waupaca’s Andrew Hendrix getting first place.
In the shot put, Kaedyn Kopelke got off a throw of 33-7.5 to take 11th out of 23 entrants. Schmidtfranz was 15th at 30-3 and Xavier Johnson was 19th at 27-8. All three made significant improvements over their season-opening efforts at Marshfield. Wausau East’s Marcus Gruszynski was the only thrower to surpass 40 feet, getting to 40-7.5.
Wiitala (6.72), Keiser (7.03) and Jayden Thums (7.54) were 11th, 14th and 18th, in the 50-meter dash preliminaries.
Rib Lake will be back in Merrill today, Thursday, for the girls invitational at 4:15 p.m. Rib Lake’s full team will be at UW-Stevens Point for a Marawood indoor event Monday, starting at 3:30 p.m.
