Colby track and field hosts home meet


By Nathaniel Underwood
The Colby track and field team hosted eight other schools for their final regular season meet last Tuesday. Both squads finished in ninth place, with the boys collecting 40.5 points and the girls ending the day with 30 points.
Owen-Withee won the boys’ team competition, finishing with a meet high of 139.5 points, while the Stanley-Boyd squad took first for the girls, finishing with 114.5 points.
Rolyn Hopperdietzel had the Hornets top finish of the day. The Colby sophomore grabbed the top spot in the long jump competition, where he recorded a leap of 19 feet, 9.25 inches. His best jump just surpassed that of Owen-Withee’s Brandon Geldernick, who took second with a jump of 19 feet, 5.5 inches. Xander Buchanan also scored for the Hornets in the event, grabbing sixth place with a leap of 18 feet, one inch.
The pair also notched points for their team in the high jump. Both Hopperdietzel and Buchanan reached a height of five feet, six inches to take third and fourth place respectively.
The girls 4x800-meter relay team and Daelyn Rieck both had second place finishes for the Hornets. The relay of Ali Adams, Veronica Mateer, Isabella Kloth and Annamarie Schmitt grabbed their spot with a time of 11:33.34 in the event, defeating the Owen-Withee relay by three seconds to claim the runner-up position.
Rieck, meanwhile, took second in the shot-put competition. The junior unleashed a throw of 40 feet, 1.50 inches, trailing only Athens’ Sy’Rih Hartwig who had an impressive toss of 42 feet, 11 inches.
The boys’ 4x200-meter relay team of Adrian Weix, Dany Nunez, Hopperdietzel and Buchanan notched a third place finish. Their time of 1:41.33 put them right behind the runner-up Neillsville squad and just ahead of fourth place Gilman.
Oliver Steen had a pair of scoring performances for the Hornets in the throwing events. The sophomore took fourth in the discus with a throw of 119 feet, five inches and then picked up a seventh place finish in the shot put, recording a toss of 36 feet, three inches. Teammate Carsen Thomsen followed just behind in the shot put, taking eighth place with a throw measuring 34 feet, 3.75 inches.
The 4x100-meter relay of Weix, Thomsen, Steen and Nunez was the final top-eight finisher for the boys team. The relay posted a time of 49.39 seconds to take sixth.
On the girls’ side, the 4x400-meter relay of Mateer, Nicole Verhoef, Carisa Steen and Jenelle Ertl also added a sixth place finish. They finished just tenths of second behind the fifth-place Stanley-Boyd relay, posting a combined time of 4:53.68.
Kloth and Adams notched individual girls sixth place finishes on Tuesday. Kloth grabbed hers in the 400meter dash, where she posted a time of 1:09.30. Meanwhile, Adams added her sixth place finish in the 800-meter run, putting up a time of 2:49.78.
Other top-eight finishes included a seventh place finish for Schmitt in the 1600-meter run with a time of 5:58.73, a seventh place finish for Edynn Hinker in the discus, where her best attempt measured 84 feet, five inches, and an eighth place finish for Mateer in the triple jump, where she recorded an attempt of 29 feet, 11 inches.
MAKING THE LEAP - Nicole Verhoef stretches out to get the most distance out of her attempt in the long jump. She went on to take 13th in the event.
STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD
SEE YOU LATER, SHOT - Daelyn Rieck unleashes a monster throw for her first attempt of the day. The toss measured over 40 feet.
STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD
