Falcons host conference foes at home meet

By Nathaniel Underwood

The Abbotsford Falcons track and field team competed in two meets over the past week, traveling to Bloomer last Thursday before hosting five teams for their home meet on Tuesday afternoon.

Abbotsford Meet

Abbotsford welcomed several Marawood squads into town for their home meet on Tuesday, with five of the six teams competing hailing from the conference. The girls took fourth place overall with 78 points while the boys team placed fifth with 73 points. The only non-Marawood team, Stanley-Boyd, took first in the girls competition, finishing well ahead of the pack with 190 points, while Edgar grabbed the top spot for the boys, finishing with 211 points.

While the Falcons did not have any first place finishes, they racked up nine second place accolades.

The girls team accounted for six of those runner-up awards. In the sprints, Reyna Romo led the Falcons by grabbing second in the 400-meter dash, posting a time of 1:09.47. Chloe Cihlar finished in second place in the 300meter hurdles with a time of 53.05 seconds and she and teammates Hazel Flink, Celia Schindler and Lauryn Harris picked up another in the 4x200-meter relay with a time of 1:53.88.

Harris and Margo Pogodzinski added a pair of field event seconds. Harris was behind only Stanley-Boyd’s Macie LaGrander in the long jump, registering a leap of 15 feet, six inches. Pogodzinski, meanwhile, did so in the shot put, where her throw of 36 feet, nine inches was second only to Athens’ Sy’Rih Hartwig.

Azul Diaz had the girls best finish in the distance events, grabbing second place in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:54.63. Teammates Monse Ochoa, Ana Tzintzun Carino and Daryana Rodriguez also scored in the event, taking sixth through eighth place respectively.

Chase Boller and a pair of sprint relay teams had the top finishes for the boys’ team. Boller captured his second place finish in the high jump, where he reached a height of five feet, eight inches, winning the tiebreaker over Stanley-Boyd’s Jesse Allard but coming in one height increment below Edgar’s Carson Nowak.

The 4x200-meter relay team of Boller, Jovanny Cruz, Carter Cihlar and Luis Gonzalez Lujan notched a second place finish by posting a time of 1:38.14 while the 4x400meter team of Cruz, Cihlar, Miguel Bautista and Preston Belanger came in seven seconds ahead of the Chequamegon relay to collect the runner-up spot with a time of 3:52.77.

The boys 4x100-meter relay also scored as the team of Cruz, Boller, Cihlar and Irvin Davila came in just seventenths of a second behind the Edgar relay to place third with a time of 46.82. Cihlar grabbed an individual third place finish of his own by reaching a height of 12 feet, six inches in the pole vault.

Diaz had the only third for the Falcon girls, grabbing her spot in the 1600-meter run with a time of 6:03.62. Ochoa also scored for Abbotsford in the event, her time of 7:05.62 earning her seventh place in the race.

Schindler and Harris combined for a pair of fourths for the girls squad. Schindler posted a distance of 32 feet, three inches to secure her spot in the triple jump while Harris grabbed hers in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27.65 seconds. Romo added another scoring performance for the Falcons in the 200-meter dash, coming in seventh and recording a time of 29.69 seconds. She and Flink also scored for the Falcons in the 100-meter dash, with Flink taking sixth with a time of 13.86 and Romo placing seventh with a time of 13.99 seconds.

Marco Garcia had the boys team’s best finishes in the individual sprint events, taking fifth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.92 seconds and sixth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:00.09. Teammate Kevin Fuentes ran the exact same time in the 400-meter dash, giving both sprinters the sixth place spot. Fuentes also scored in the 200-meter dash, taking eighth with a time of 27.23 seconds, as did Gonzalez Lujan, who placed sixth with a time of 26.58 seconds.

Bautista led the Falcon boys in the distance events, posting a fifth place finish in the 1600-meter run with a time of 5:23.59 and taking sixth in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:18.56. Preston Belanger and Jack Sheahan also recorded scoring performances in the 1600-meter run, filling in after Bautista in sixth and seventh with times of 5:43.84 and 5:58.45 respectively.

Other top-eight finishes for the boys included a pair of sixth place finishes for Caleb Kulesa and Carlos Beltran, the former doing so with a time of 50.06 seconds in the 300-meter hurdles and the latter posting a distance of 33 feet, 1.75 inches in the triple jump to secure his, and an eighth place finish for Marcus VanLuven in the discus with a throw of 110 feet.

Bloomer Invitational

The Falcons made the trek northwest to Bloomer last Thursday to compete against eight other schools in the Bloomer Invitational. The girls team tied with Durand for fifth place, picking up 70 team points while the boys squad placed seventh with 42 team points. Stanley-Boyd grabbed the top spot in the girls competition with 135.33 points, Cadott took second with 103.33 points, and the hosting Bloomer team placed third with 93.5 points. On the boys’ side, Durand took first, finishing with 126 points, putting them ahead of runner up Stanley-Boyd, which earned 95 points, and Rib Lake, which ended the day with 94 points.

The Abbotsford boys were uplifted by their solid performances in the field events, where they picked up 31 of their 42 points. Meanwhile, the girls had a more balanced evening, finding success in the sprint relays, the distance races, and the field events.

The Falcons had four different first place finishes in Bloomer. Abbotsford held both the top spots in the pole vault as Carter Cihlar and Hazel Flink both won their respective competitions. Cihlar cruised past the rest of the field, entering the fray at 11 feet after the rest of his opponents had already dropped out. Meanwhile, Flink reached the height of seven feet, six inches, clearing the mark on her second attempt. Teammate Reyna Romo placed seventh in the event, reaching a height of six feet on her first

See HOME MEET/ Page 17

AND WE HAVE LIFTOFF - Lauryn Harris launches into the pit during the long jump competition during the Falcons home meet on Tuesday. She took second in the event. STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD

PUSHING ON THE FINAL LAP - Azul Diaz stretches out her stride as she heads into the last 300 meters of the 1600-meter run.

STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD Home meet

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attempt, giving her the tiebreaker over three other athletes who also reached that mark.

Azul Diaz had the Falcons’ best finish in the distance events, winning the 3200-meter run. The senior led the entire race but winning was anything but easy. Diaz had to battle Stanley-Boyd’s Mariah Wehling every step of the way, but was able to hold off her opponent down the final stretch, finishing three-hundredths of a second ahead of Wehling to secure her victory. Her final time was 13:40.23. Monse Ochoa also scored for Abbotsford in the event, taking fifth with a time of 15:36.19.

The Falcons’ fourth win came in the 4x200-meter relay, where Romo, Celia Schindler, Chloe Cihlar and Lauryn Harris combined to notch a meet-best time of 1:54.87. The speedy quartet had plenty of leeway in the race, coming in over three seconds faster than the second place Cadott relay.

Marcus VanLuven led the boys’ squad in throwing events, grabbing a second place finish in the shot put and fourth in the discus. The junior’s top throw of 39 feet, 3.25 inches put him behind only Durand’s Gavin Jahnke in the shot put while his throw of 122 feet, 11 inches put him in the upper echelons of the discus competition.

Margo Pogodzinski had an equally impressive day in the girls throwing events, picking up the runner-up spot in the discus while recording the third best throw in the shot put. She edged out Durand’s Makenzie Almsted for second place in the discus, throwing for a distance of 110 feet, seven inches while her third attempt in the shot put was her best of the day, measuring 31 feet, 9.25 inches. Kate Sheahan also scored for the Falcons in the discus, earning eighth place in the event with a throw of 82 feet, 11 inches.

Chase Boller earned yet another second place finish in the field events for Abbotsford. The junior continued his solid 2025 campaign by earning the runner-up spot in the high jump. Only he and eventual winner Jed Henderson cleared the height of five feet, 10 inches, though Henderson was able to get one step further by making it past the six foot mark.

The boys’ 4x100-meter relay team of Boller, Caleb Kulesa, Carter Cihlar and Irvin Davila picked up the final second place spot for the Falcons in Bloomer. Their time of 48.78 seconds put them solidly ahead of the third-place Gilman relay and a second behind the top Thorp team.

The girls’ 4x100-meter relay also earned a top-three finish for Abbotsford. The team of Romo, Harris, Schindler and Flink posted a time of 54.93 seconds to grab third in their event, trailing just the Stanley-Boyd and Cadott relays.

Chloe Cihlar and Kulesa both earned points in their respective 300-meter hurdles competitions. Cihlar took fourth in her race, defeating Stanley-Boyd’s Stella Chwala by six-hundredths of a second to secure her spot with a time of 55.25 seconds. Meanwhile, Kulesa took sixth in the boys’ event, putting up a time of 52.01 seconds.

Celia Schinlder had the final top-five performance of the day for the Falcons, taking fifth in the triple jump with a distance of 30 feet, 3.75 inches. Other scoring performances included a sixth place finish for Diaz in the 1600meter run with a time of 6:12.25 and an eighth-place finish for Chloe Cihlar in the 100-meter dash with a time of 14.03 seconds.

TAKING FLIGHT - Carlos Beltran looks to stick his spot in the pit during the triple jump. He would end up taking sixth. STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD