Richter sets record at Myrhum; both teams 4th at Otto Bacher

Five Medford athletes earned the opportunity to face some of the state’s best at Saturday’s Myrhum Invitational hosted in suburban Milwaukee by Hartland Arrowhead.

The rewards were some strong times and a new school record.

Junior Meredith Richter was the record breaker. She set the new standard of 5:14.4 in the 1,600-meter run, which clipped the old record of 5:14.75 set by Katie Phillips in the 2017 WIAA Division 2 state meet. It was good for sixth place out of 25 entrants in Saturday’s race, which was won by Chequamegon’s Autumn Michalski in 4:59.43. Zaira Malloy-Salgado of Middleton (5:03.11), Lily Kriegel of Whitefish Bay (5:09.2), Lilie Fouts of Appleton Xavier (5:12.18) and Kate Buerger of University Lake School (5:14.05) were just ahead of Richter, who beat West De Pere’s Kate Schmoll by 2.25 seconds for that sixth spot.

Richter wasn’t done scoring points. She added a sixth-place finish in the 800-meter run at 2:23.17, 0.56 seconds faster than seventh-place runner. Leah Moe of Pewaukee. Michalski represented the Northwoods again, winning this race in 2:15.56, 2.66 seconds ahead of Mukwonago’s Eva Koos. Savannah Fraley of Mequon Homestead (2:20.25), Jillian Krueger of Kimberly (2:20.81) and Madison Krueger of Kimberly (2:20.85) were just ahead of Richter.

The meet required specific requirements for athletes to enter. In Richter’s case, times of 5:40 in the 1,600 and 2:34 in the 800 were needed. She had easily hit both of those standards in multiple meets this spring.

Teammate Jaylin Machon also competed in two events. She cleared 10 feet in the pole vault to place 15th out of 22 competitors. Machon, who holds Medford’s school record at 10-6, got 9-6 and 10 feet on her second attempts Saturday before bowing out with three misses at 10-6. Eliza Aitken of West De Pere won Saturday’s competition at 12-6. Kimberly’s Campbell Roberts and Wauwatosa East’s Hope Stangel both went 12 feet to take second and third. Ten feet was the qualifying standard.

Machon added a 33rd-place finish in the 100-meter high hurdles at 18.21 seconds. The standard was 18 seconds, which Machon beat in three earlier meets. Jillian Anderson of Bay Port was Saturday’s champion at 15.1 seconds.

Richter’s two sixth-place finishes gave Medford six team points in the meet, good for a 27th-place tie with Division 1 teams Franklin, Germantown, Janesville Parker, and Indian Trail Academy. Arrowhead won the meet with 69 points.

For the boys, Medford was led by a 17th-place finish from Josh Clark in the 1,600-meter run. The senior had a time of 4:33.97 that was a personal-best by about 6.5 seconds. He was 3.22 seconds away from the top 10 in a race won by Homestead’s Owen Bosley in 4:20.52. Clark’s 4:40.43 on April 25 just got him into the field.

Silas Wipf placed 32nd in the 800-meter run with the competition pulling him to a personal-best time of 2:03.12. He knocked 1.87 seconds off his previous bests of 2:04.99, which he’s hit twice this season and was right at the cutline for qualifying for Saturday’s race. Waunakee’s Andrew Regnier won in 1:55.

Anakin Stokes was 39th in the 200-meter dash at 23.7 seconds, not far off his season-best of 23.57 from the April 28 Auburndale meet, which was just under the qualifying standard of 23.7 seconds. Kimberly had the top two sprinters in the event Saturday in Jack Schreiber (22.1) and Jack Statz (22.27).

Kimberly won the meet with 81 points.

Fourths in Merrill

Both Medford’s boys and girls teams placed fourth of 11 teams in Friday’s Otto Bacher Invitational in Merrill.

The boys scored 69 points to trail Wausau East (180.5), Lakeland (99.5) and Northland Pines (89). Newman Catholic (52) and Merrill (42) were fifth and sixth.

Gage Losiewicz was the team’s lone winner. He cleared 11-6 in the pole vault to win by 18 inches over Kaemyn Heritage of Northland Pines, Erik Anderson of Lakeland and Hunter Stadler of Merrill.

The Raiders did some damage in the relays, scoring 28 points in those four events.

The 3,200-meter race went right down to the last meter, where Wausau East edged Medford’s team of Vincent Seidel, Zach Rudolph, Adyn Gripentrog and Lucas Borman by 0.01 seconds. Medford’s time of 8:52.25 was easily the best by a Medford team so far in 2023. Merrill was a distant third at 9:23.05.

The 800-meter team of Stokes, Cory Lindahl, Paxton Rothmeier and Charlie Kleist was second in a season-best 1:34.34, 2.08 seconds ahead of Newman Catholic and 0.66 seconds behind first-place Lakeland. Stokes, Evan Paul, Itsael Medina and Kleist ran the 400-meter relay in 46.11 seconds to finish second behind East’s time of 45.81 seconds. The Raiders beat Northland Pines by 1.36 seconds.

Losiewicz, Lindahl, Caleb Scoles and Jose Herrera finished the meet by taking fifth in the 1,600-meter relay at 3:46.17. Lakeland won in 3:37.67.

The Raiders got 12 points in the 800-meter with Gripentrog (2:10.28), Rudolph (2:12.06) and Seidel (2:14.64) taking fourth, fifth and sixth. Gripentrog cut nearly six seconds off his previous best.

Paul was fifth at 37-9.5 and Owen Stockwell was sixth at 37-0.5 in the triple jump. Paul added seventh-place points in the long jump at 18 feet, while Stockwell improved to 17-2 and took 10th. Paul also made the 100-meter dash final and took ninth in 12.5 seconds. Kleist was fifth in the shot put at 39-3 and Scoles got an eighth-place point in the 400-meter dash at 56.7 seconds.

Herrera and Losiewicz were sixth and seventh in the 200-meter dash final at 24.45 and 24.5 seconds, while Rothmeier just missed the final, taking 10th in the preliminaries at 25.01 seconds, 0.2 seconds behind Losiewicz.

Borman fell one spot and 2.04 seconds shy of scoring the 1,600-meter run with his new best time of 5:24.29. Ervin Ulrich was 11th at 5:26, also a new best. Ulrich lowered his time to 11:46.23 while taking 12th in the 3,200-meter run.

The girls got 30 of their 64 points in relay races, including two wins.

Ella Daniels, Ella Dassow, Lillie Gleichauf and Lindsay Kahn won the 3,200-meter race in 10:56.37, easily beating Merrill by 13.18 seconds. Lindsey Klapatauskas, Stacy Stolp, Autumn Cooley and Brenley Beran finished the 400-meter relay in 56.02 seconds, beating Wausau East by 0.48 seconds.

The 800-meter team of Beran, Bryn Fronk, Aliyah Pilgrim and Machon took third in 1:55.43, trailing Tomahawk (1:52.59) and Wausau East (1:54.53). The 1,600-meter team of Pilgrim, Gleichauf, Fronk and Riley Clark was fifth in 4:39.59. Mosinee won that race in 4:10.05.

Kahn had a strong day individually, taking third in the 1,600-meter run (5:53.92) and 3,200-meter run (12:49.05). Daniels joined her in the 1,600 and took fifth in 6:07.31. Northland Pines’ Nora Gremban set a meet-record time of 5:06.84 while winning that race. Gremban fell short of her own 2022 record of 11:04.93 in the 3,200 while winning in 11:11.3.

Klapatauskas also had a strong day, adding a fourth-place finish in the triple jump at 29-11.5, a sixth-place finish in the shot put at 27-2 and a seventh-place finish in the 100-meter dash final in 14.16 seconds. She had a preliminary time of 14.01 seconds. Rachel Wesle got the eighthplace point in the shot put at 26-3.

Daniels was seventh in the long jump at 14-1, Dassow was seventh in the 800-meter run at 2:57.02 and Pilgrim was seventh in the 200-meter dash final at 29.45 seconds. She qualified at 29.26 seconds. Gleichauf got a point by taking eighth in the 400-meter dash at 1:08.96.

Adalyn Dittrich was one spot and 1.69 seconds away from scoring while taking ninth in the 300-meter low hurdles at 56.65 seconds. Stolp was 10th in the triple jump (28-6.5) and 12th in 100-meter dash (14.52.). Rivalee Stokes was 10th in the discus (80-8) and Beran was 11th in the 200-meter dash at 30.09 seconds.