POINTS ADD UP QUICKLY - Big efforts get girls a win, boys solid too

POINTS ADD UP QUICKLY

The Gilman Pirates don’t have the deepest girls track and field roster, but they showed Tuesday when their top athletes are on top of their game they can pile up points quickly.

Behind a perfect three-win night individually from senior Jaylen Copenhaver, two wins and a second from Addison Vick, a first and second from Claire Drier in the hurdles and a near school record in the 800-meter relay, the girls won their side of the Gilman Invitational with 134 points. The Pirates outscored Bruce by 10 while, two weeks before the Eastern Cloverbelt Conference championships, rivals Owen-Withee (120.5), Columbus Catholic (88), Colby (83), Spencer (56.5) and Greenwood (16) filled out the rest of the field.

“Overall, I’m really happy with how everyone did,” head coach Mike Gingras said at meet’s end. The boys also had a strong night, taking second with 103 points, three more than Columbus and well behind Owen-Withee (178). “It was a great meet. We had great weather. It was a fun night.”

Meet wins for Gilman’s girls program are rare. In fact, Gingras and assistant Tom Tallier didn’t remember the last one off the top of their heads.

Collectively, Vick, Patricia Kloss, Copenhaver and Drier nearly made history in the 800-meter relay, winning it in 1:52.49, just 0.28 seconds off the school record they set at last May’s sectional meet. They won Tuesday’s race by 12.17 seconds over Owen-Withee.

Individually those four were responsible for seven individual wins and two seconds, which adds up to 86 points.

Copenhaver won the triple and long jumps. She and Vick took the top two spots out of seven entrants in the triple jump. Copenhaver went 32 feet, 8.75 inches while Vick went a season-best 315.75. In the long jump. Copenhaver’s winning distance of 15-2.5 beat Spencer’s Caitlin Clark by 6 inches. Drier added four points with a fifth-place jump of 135.

Early in the meet, Copenhaver added a win in the 100-meter dash with a personal-best time of 13.14, 0.31 seconds ahead of Owen-Withee’s Kendall Weiler. Clark was third at 13.68 seconds, 0.04 seconds ahead of Kloss. Kloss got her win near the end of the meet, sprinting to victory in the 200meter dash with her best time as a Gilman Pirate, 28.12 seconds. She beat Owen-Withee’s Kayla Rasmussen by 0.49 seconds. Kyra Rabuck added three sixth-place points at 30.82 seconds.

Vick cleared 4-10 in the high jump and was credited with first place ahead of Aubrey Waldhauser of Columbus Catholic, who also hit that height. That tied Vick’s best jump of the spring. Brynn Komanec tied for eighth at 310. Vick also won the 400-meter dash in 1:06.98, a time that beat runner-up Shelby Garcia of Bruce by 0.93 seconds. Ava Webster took sixth for Gilman in 1:11.27, her second-best time of the season.

Claire Drier won the 100-meter high hurdles in 17.8 seconds, her best time so far this spring. She was 0.32 seconds ahead of Owen-Withee’s Cassidy Graski. Drier later took second in the 300-meter hurdles in 50.3 seconds, 1.1 seconds behind Weiler.

Rilla Syryczuk was Gilman’s other individual scorer. She was fourth in the discus at 76-8 and fifth in the shot put at 28-5.25. Colby’s Daelyn Rieck won both at 113-1 and 39-2.5. Gilman’s Jazmyn Robinson was ninth in the shot put (23-9.75) and Emalee Rivera was 11th in the discus (53 feet).

Two more relay teams scored for Gilman. The 1,600meter team of Komanec, Shae Drier, Rabuck and Webster closed out the meet with a second-place time of 4:46.34. They beat Colby by 4.31 seconds and trailed Owen-Withee by 11.09 seconds. Shae Drier, Kennedy Buske, Aspen Person and Rabuck were third in the 400-meter relay at 57.69 seconds, trailing Owen-Withee (53.63) and Spencer (56.13). Komanec (3:14.65) and Buske (3:17.17) were ninth and 10th in their first 800-meter runs of the year.

Boys results

Trevor Vick won the triple jump and the 800-meter relay team earned wins for Gilman in the boys’ side of Tuesday’s meet.

Vick extended his personal-best distance to 40-3.25 with his win. He won comfortably over Spencer’s Teddy Meyer (38-0.5). Mitchell Moran, who scored in three events, took sixth at 31-7.5. Vick also tied for second in the high jump when he cleared 5-8, 2 inches below Columbus Catholic’s Mason Edwards. Sawyer Winger also hit 5-8 for Gilman and was credited with fourth place.

Winger added a third-place distance of 18-5.5 in the long jump, 7 inches behind winner Brandon Geldernick of Owen-Withee, and took third in the 200-meter dash at a personal-best 24.2 seconds, 1.24 seconds behind Geldernick. Brady McAlpine was sixth for Gilman in 24.81 seconds. McAlpine also took third in the 100-meter dash while lowering his time to 11.94 seconds and ran the 300meter intermediate hurdles for the first time this season and took fourth in 46.8 seconds.

Chad Konsella (55.96) and Logan Halida (56.58) were third and fourth in the 400-meter dash, which was won easily by Owen-Withee’s Mason Gay in 52.57 seconds. Konsella added a fifth-place time of 12.02 seconds in the 100 and was 11th in the long jump (14-7).

Moran put in the distance work for Gilman. He took third in his first 3,200-meter run of the spring at 13:24.38 and placed seventh in the 1,600-meter run at 5:51.77, easily a season-best time. In the discus competition, Taydyn Angell took fifth at 108-4 and Wyatt Orth got the eighth-place point at an improved distance of 84-4. Elijah Madlon was 10th in the shot put at 27-4.75.

The winning 800-meter relay team of Winger, James Wojcik, Orth and Max Ustianowski finished in 1:39.71, beating Colby (1:42.1), Spencer (1:44.1), Greenwood (1:47.39) and Owen-Withee (1:59.3). The 400-meter team of Wojcik, Orth, Halida and Vick was third in 48.46 seconds behind Spencer (46.96) and Columbus Catholic (48.37).

The Pirates ran the 1,600-meter relay for fun with two baseball players and Logan Halida, Angell, Lucas Halida and Beau Pockat finished in 4:08.2. Spencer won in 3:55.04.

Gilman won the mixed 400-meter relay with Angell, Rivera, Orth and Syryczuk finishing in 55.52 seconds, 3.1 seconds ahead of Owen-Withee.

Spencer and Bruce tied for fourth in the team standings with 85 points, Colby scored 50 and Greenwood scored 27.

Gilman is at the Stanley-Boyd Invitational Friday and finishes its pre-conference schedule at Colby Tuesday and at Cadott on May 16.

Gilman’s Patricia Kloss pulls ahead of Bruce’s Shelby Garcia halfway through the 200-meter dash. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS