Hornets battle at Wausau West
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Hornets got in about half their events before weather conditions ended Wausau West’s meet prematurely last Tuesday. The girls team finished with 37 points, which was good for fourth out of eight teams while the boys claimed sixth with 22.33 points.
Colby notched two first place finishes in Wausau. The 4x800-meter relay of Ali Adams, Casey Reynolds, Annamarie Schmitt and Pearl Feiten found themselves in a heated race to open the competition. The Hornets and three Wausau relays, two from West and one from East, all finished within six seconds of each other, though none were closer than two teams vying for the top spot. After 1600 meters, Colby and Wausau West’s first relay were neck and neck coming to the finish line, but the Hornets were able to narrowly pull out the victory. Their time of 11:25.11 was a little over a tenth of a second faster than the Warriors.
Daelyn Rieck’s win in the discus was not nearly as close. The sophomore thrower blew by the rest of the competition, posting a throw measuring 124 feet, five inches. No other athlete had a throw over 100 feet, with Wausau West’s Alianna Totzke taking second place with a throw of 98 feet, three inches.
Jazmyn Heeg added a second place finish for the Hornets, finishing as the runner up in the 100-meter dash. She defeated Northland Pines’ Avery Renkes by two-hundredths of a second in the event, recording a time of 13.65 seconds.
The 4x800-meter relay team of Max Adams, Tucker Hayes, Carter Roth and Jacob Raatz had the Colby boys’ best finish of the afternoon. The quartet of distance runners grabbed third in the event with a time of 10:30.64.
Veronica Mateer and Erik Martinez both claimed fifth place finishes for the Hornets. Mateer snagged the spot in the 100-meter hurdles, posting a time of 19.92 seconds while Martinez’s throw of 40 feet, five-and-three-quarters inches in the shot put was fifth best at the meet. Mateer also added a sixth place finish in the triple jump, her furthest attempt measuring 29 feet, 10 inches.
The Hornets finished back to back in both the boys high jump and the boys long jump. In the former, Xander Buchanan grabbed sixth and teammate Caden Kleparski was right behind in seventh, with both athletes clearing a height of five feet, six inches in the competition. Meanwhile, Rolyn Hopperdietzel’s leap of 17 feet, nine-and-a-half inches just edged out Buchanan’s longest attempt of 17 feet, nine inches in the long jump, earning the pair six and seventh respectively.
Jenelle Ertl was the final Colby athlete to post a top-eight performance on Tuesday, taking eighth in the 1600-meter with a time of 7:08.10.
Due to a number of ties, Seth Hopperdietzel also scored in the 100-meter dash after tying for ninth with Wausau East’s Riley Imhoff, finishing with a time of 12.30 seconds. Caden Kleparski also grabbed two team points for his ninth place finish in the 400-meter dash, as Wausau West took five of the top-eight spots in the event. The Colby senior finished with a time of 57.80 seconds.
Tori Underwood just missed on scoring herself, taking ninth in the 100-yard dash, posting a time of 14.50 seconds.
The Hornets will be back in action with a trip to Augusta this Thursday, April 25. A number of other conference foes will be at the meet, serving as a good potential measuring post for when Colby will face them at the Cloverbelt-East meet at the end of the regular season. Start time for the Augusta Invite is scheduled for 4:00 p.m.
