Pirates battle through wind and cold in home invitational

GILMAN T&F INVITATIONAL

On what they hope will be the last cold and windy day they’ll compete in this spring, the Gilman Pirates got six top-two performances while scoring 64.5 points on the girls’ side of Tuesday’s 12team Gilman Invitational.

Two of those performances were winners, one each from senior Gracie Tallier and junior Bailey Angell, who both also earned a second-place individual finish. Angell remained undefeated in her shot put competitions this season with a distance of 38 feet, 5.25 inches that is her best outdoor mark of the season. She beat Ladysmith senior Tori Thorpe by 29.25 inches to get the win, while Gilman’s Kaylee O’Malley was 11th in the competition at 27-1.5. Angell did not win the discus for the first time in four outdoor outings this spring. Her best throw was 104-9 and trailed Colby’s Daelyn Rieck, who hit 108 feet. Rieck is the sister of last year’s Division 3 state champion Malayna Rieck. O’Malley’s first discus competition of the season ended with an 11th-place finish at 63 feet.

Tallier’s meet started with a win in the 100-meter dash with a season-best time of 12.8 seconds. She hit the finish line 0.44 seconds ahead of Ladysmith’s Allison Clark and ahead of two Eastern Cloverbelt rivals, Leah Scherer (13.39) and Aubre Robida (13.56) of Loyal. Gilman’s Jaylen Copenhaver scored two points by placing seventh in a seasonbest 14.11 seconds.

Tallier and Kallie Volk of Three Lakes fought to the finish in the 200-meter dash with Volk winning by just 0.01 seconds in 26.4 seconds. Copenhaver was 0.52 seconds and one place shy of scoring while taking ninth in 30.05 seconds. Tallier’s time of 26.41 seconds was a season-best and beat third-place Addysen Wolf of Loyal by 0.95 seconds.

Claire Drier scored 13 points in the hurdles, led by a second-place time of 51.88 seconds in the 300-meter race. She trailed another Eastern Cloverbelt star, Hayden Willner of Colby, by 2.31 seconds and was 0.18 seconds ahead of Ladysmith’s Abby Fye. Drier was fourth in the 100-meter high hurdles at 18.27 seconds, a personal-best time. Volk won in 16.67 seconds.

Kyra Rabuck, Copenhaver, Drier and Tallier teamed up for one more runnerup finish. That came in the 800-meter relay in a time of 1:58.15. They beat thirdplace Ladysmith by 2.66 seconds, but were well behind Loyal (1:52.14).

Drier was fifth in the long jump with a leap of 14-9 and Copenhaver got 1.5 more points by tying for seventh in the high jump at 4 feet.

Ladysmith won the girls team championship with 132 points, well ahead of Loyal’s team score of 96. Colby was third with 91.5 points, followed by Cadott (85), Three Lakes (70), Gilman (64.5), Bruce (39), Columbus Catholic (31), Owen-Withee (29), Prentice (21), Spencer (19) and Greenwood (4).

Gilman’s boys scored points in four events, led by a sixth-place time of 4:13.8 in the 1,600-meter relay by Brady McAlpine, Quintin Franzen, Sawyer Winger and Braeden Person. Loyal won the race in 3:50.2. The Pirates beat Columbus Catholic (4:16.14) and Owen-Withee (4:31.33).

McAlpine scored two points by taking seventh in the 100-meter dash in a new best time of 12.23 seconds. Winger was 13th in a season-best 12.78 seconds. McAlpine added an 11th-place finish in his first 400-meter dash of the spring at 1:00.44 while Person was right behind him at 1:00.9. McAlpine went 15 feet to place 13th in the long jump.

Franzen got the eighth-place point in the 110-meter high hurdles with his time of 19.77 seconds. The junior also took 13th in the 200-meter dash at a season-best 25.87 seconds, while Person was 15th in 26.3 seconds.

Winger got a half-point by tying for eighth in the high jump. He cleared 5 feet.

Mitchell Moran was 10th in the 1,600-meter run at 6:12.7, easily his best outdoor time this spring, 16th in the 800-meter run at a season-best 2:41.09 and 21st in the long jump at 11-1.

Caleb Marion took 11th in the discus competition with a throw of 84-3 and 12th in the shot put at 31-6.

Colby won the boys meet with 104 points, followed by Owen-Withee (86.5), Spencer (80), Ladysmith (76), Loyal (76), Three Lakes (68), Cadott (57.5), Bruce (56.5), Columbus Catholic (56), Prentice (11), Greenwood (9) and Gilman (6.5).

The Pirates are scheduled to attend Stanley-Boyd’s Invitational Friday and then head to Spencer on Tuesday.