Girls one point shy of first place; Clark wins boys 3,200 meters

COLBY INVITATIONAL

In what they hope is a good sign for their May 22 WIAA Division 2 regional meet in Colby, the Medford Raiders track and field squads set several personal bests and the girls were one point away from winning the team championship at Tuesday’s nine-team Colby Invitational.

Antigo just got by Medford’s girls 116-115 to take the team title, while the host Hornets were third. Medford placed third in the boys meet with 111 points, just behind Great Northern Conference and post-season rival Lakeland (120). Stanley-Boyd, another team Medford will see in the post-season, won the meet with 160 points.

Three different girls were winners for the Raiders. Meredith Richter won the 400-meter dash and nearly hit what has been one of Medford’s most elusive school records. She finished in 1:00.3, just 0.4 seconds off the record mark of 59.9 seconds. Richter beat Pittsville’s Reese Grimm by 1.96 seconds, while Raiders Aliyah Pilgrim (1:06.48) and Autumn Cooley (1:10.44) added points by placing fifth and eighth.

Stacy Stolp was just shy of her personal best in the triple jump while winning the event at 30 feet, 11 inches. Teammate Lindsey Klapatauskas was second at 29-0.5 to give Medford 18 points. Jaylin Machon was the third winner, taking the pole vault at a height of 10 feet. Machon added a second-place finish in the 100-meter high hurdles at 17.57 seconds, 0.42 seconds behind Colby’s Hayden Willner. Plus, the Raider junior ran the 300-meter low hurdles for the first time this spring, finishing third in 51.23 seconds. Willner won again in 48.65 seconds.

Freshman Rivalee Stokes had a big day, setting new bests in the discus and shot put. She crushed her previous best in the discus by almost 14 feet, taking second at 102-5. Colby’s Daelyn Rieck won at 115-1. Medford’s Rachel Wesle (61-10) and Adalyn Dittrich (60-5) also set new bests while placing 13th and 15th. Stokes improved by 3 inches in the shot put and placed fifth at 26-9, while Klapatauskas was next at 26-6.5. Wesle missed scoring by a half-inch, placing ninth at 26-3.25.

Lindsay Kahn scored 12 points with two third-place finishes in distance races. Her time of 5:46.06 in the 1,600-meter run was a personal-best, while Ella Dan- iels was fifth for Medford at 6:09.28. Antigo’s Lillian L’Esperance (5:39.67) and Lakeland’s Ada Ernst (5:42.3) took the top two spots. Kahn’s 800-meter time of 2:35.68 also was her best of 2023, while Riley Clark was 11th at 3:02.01. Grimm won in 2:30.91 and L’Esperance was second at 2:32.81.

Daniels set a new best in the long jump at 14-8, which was good for fourth place. Brenley Beran (13-5.25) and Stolp (13-4.5) fell just out of scoring range in ninth and 10th places.

Medford’s sprint relay teams both finished second. The 800-meter team of Alexis Zuleger, Stolp, Clark and Beran was timed at 1:58.38, well ahead of thirdplace Colby (2:00.83) and well behind Antigo (1:54.51). The 400-meter team of Klapatauskas, Stolp, Zuleger and Beran finished in 55.71 seconds to trail Auburndale (54.45) and easily beat third-place Stanley-Boyd (59.5). The 1,600-meter team of Pilgrim, Brooke Rudolph, Bryn Fronk and Richter was third in 4:30.45, trailing Lakeland (4:21.64) and Stanley-Boyd (4:27.99).

Stanley-Boyd (95) was fourth in the team standings, followed by Lakeland (87), Pittsville (45), Auburndale (43), Granton (27) and Owen-Withee (16).

Medford started the boys meet with a win from the 3,200-meter relay team of Vincent Seidel, Zach Rudolph, Josh Clark and Silas Wipf. They went unchallenged, winning in 8:30.61, almost a minute ahead of Auburndale (9:28.15).

Clark added a big win in the 3,200-meter run, taking a big chunk off of his previous times at 10:19.62. Owen-Withee’s Colton Paczkowski was a distant second at 10:36.51. Raider senior Ervin Ulrich set a new best time of 11:30.85 that took seventh. Senior Lucas Borman was ninth in 11:48.91.

From there, Medford scored points in nearly every area to make a run at second place.

Two relays earned second-place points. The 1,600-meter squad of Jose Herrera, Rudolph, Caleb Scoles and Gage Losiewicz finished in 3:43.28, 5.63 seconds behind Lakeland. Scoles, Cory Lindahl, Losiewicz and Anakin Stokes finished the 800-meter relay in 1:35.86, just behind Lakeland’s 1:33.39. The 400-meter team of Stokes, Evan Paul, Itsael Medina and Paxton Rothmeier was third in 46.02 seconds, trailing Stanley-Boyd (45.13) and Colby (45.49).

In field events, Losiewicz took third in the pole vault by clearing 12 feet. He came up short in tiebreakers with winner Zack Boes of Stanley-Boyd and runner-up Seth Hopperdietzel of Colby. Owen Stockwell continues to make big strides in his first year of triple jumping, reaching 391.5 to place third, an inch out of second place. Evan Paul set a new best as well at 38-10.25, good for fourth. Colby’s Ivan Haemer won at 39-8. Will Haavisto got a point by taking eighth in the shot put at a season-best 36-5. Lindahl was eighth in the high jump at 5-2. Herrera (17-11) and Lindahl (16-8) were ninth and 11th in the long jump.

On the track, Medford got 11 points in the 110-meter high hurdles with Will Daniels taking third in 19.36 seconds and Rothmeier taking fourth in 19.89 seconds. Daniels added a fourth-place time of 46.72 seconds in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles.

The Raiders got 15 points in the 400-meter dash. Wipf was third in 53.4 seconds, followed by Charlie Kleist (53.86) and Herrera (54.92). Kleist was sixth in the 200-meter dash at 24.34 seconds, while Lindahl won the eighth-place tiebreaker at 24.727 seconds.

Adyn Gripentrog lowered his time by about 12 seconds in the 1,600-meter run, taking third in 4:47.52, plus he got an eighth-place point in the 800-meter run at 2:12.03, just ahead of Seidel’s 2:12.42. Stokes was fifth in the 100-meter dash at 12.01 seconds, while Herrera got two points by taking eighth at 12.25 seconds. Medina was 11th at 12.412 seconds.

Owen-Withee was fourth in the team standings with 91 points, followed by Colby (80), Auburndale (69), Antigo (33), Pittsville (20) and Granton (2).

Medford heads to the Marshfield Invitational on Friday in its last tune-up before the Great Northern Conference championship meet at Lakeland on Tuesday. That meet starts at 4 p.m.