Another track season is wrapped up. For five years in a row, Coach Hallberg and I have taken athletes down to La Crosse for the state track meet. It never gets old. I mentioned it before, but it is a surreal experience, with thousands of spectators in attendance. I don't think there is another state sporting event that compares. Most team sports compete largely in front of their own fans. Track athletes compete in front of such a massive audience of fans from all over the state. As a spectator, you get to witness amazing athletes from other districts and parts of the state. Those of us from small schools can watch incredible athletes from big city schools. You can watch state records being broken and every once in a while, there is a performance that makes the whole audience sit up and watch. As a coach, it is a thrill on so many levels. It's exciting to cheer on athletes from other West Lakeland schools that we have competed against multiple times throughout the season. It's exciting to bring athletes into the stadium for the first time and for them to experience the scale of the meet, the energy of the crowd, and even for our relay alternates to get a chance to do some warm-up laps on the red track. It's exciting to watch athletes compete with the absolute best in the state and with a feeling that the only thing that truly matters is to get out there are compete one last time at the highest level. It can be hard to appreciate just how tough events are at state. We have phenomenal athletes who are used to winning their events and then end up finishing, say, 13th at state. But those other dozen athletes are REALLY good. There's no shame in that. Because just to have been here means that you're among the best in the state. As a coach, I can get really stressed out during the Regional and Sectional meets, hoping that our athletes perform well enough to advance. But in La Crosse, that stress is largely (though maybe not entirely) gone. Because this is it. There's nothing left. Sure, we'd love to get medals and end up on the podium. But we've made it to the end. There's a real sense of accomplishment in that. Sophomore Alli Peterson came to La Crosse last year as a freshman, having set the school records in long jump and triple jump. She competed in triple jump at state two years in a row now, finishing 11th this year. She has done an incredible job in these events and demonstrates a natural talent for them. There's no question that she will continue to be successful next year. The girls 4x800m relay, made up of freshman Alexis Slater, sophomore Kylie Robelia, and seniors McKenzie Rombach and Gracie Gerber, had a strong finish to the season, shaving huge chunks of time off of their race one meet after another. The 2016 team had set a new school record, which Gracie was a part of as a freshman, so it was well-deserved for her to make it to state in this event. The relay team faced strong competition and finished 17th out of 18 teams. The girls 4x400m relay, made up of freshman Sarah Chenal, senior Linda Harmon, as well as Alexis and Gracie, has run times very similar to the 2017 girls team, which also made it to state that year. And of course Linda and Gracie were members of that team, so this was a return visit for them. It's a thrill to watch these girls run; they're so strong and determined. These girls epitomize was it means to be a runner. This relay team placed 15th overall. Senior David MacKean has developed into an incredibly talented and natural multi-sport athlete. Being 6'6" tall can create some physical challenges, but David has proven to be a great athlete in football, basketball, and track. While he's had excellent times in multiple races, the 800m run is where he's done the best. This year at sectionals, he ran a blisteringly fast time. His heat at state was tightly packed and cost him an opportunity to match that time, and he finished 16th out of 17 runners. Senior Nate McKinley, as I've mentioned multiple times, is an amazing 400m runner. Never have I seen an athlete own an event like Nate owns the 400m dash. Last year he missed a shot at state by a fraction of a second against tougher Division 2 runners. This year he finally made it and finished 6th, earning a spot on the podium. David and Nate were obviously essential members of the boys 4x400m relay, but two runners can't carry a relay team. I've seen multiple relay teams with three solid runners set some really fast times, but those teams never make it out of sectionals. To make it to state, a relay team has to have four solid runners. This year, we had exactly that. Sophomores Derek Lee and Jared VanWatermeulen shaved about 5 seconds off their 400m times from last year to get this relay down to a time that is likely the closest any team has been to the school record since it was set in 1997. These four (mostly) chill guys are such a thrill to watch because they just step up and go. No drama. They placed 7th overall, missing the podium by less than half a second. With the season over, we finally get a break. Us coaches get to see our family at a reasonable time again. But for some of our athletes, they're already planning the next phase. They're planning summer work-outs. They're looking toward fall sports. They're setting goals for 2020. Some are already talking about coming back to La Crosse next year. While there's a couple months of the year when track isn't really on my mind, it's an incredible thrill to watch these athletes be consumed by the desire to better themselves. Thank you so much to our fans, parents, and others who have supported us throughout this season. Thank you to the Burnett County Sentinal, the Inter-County Leader, and We Are Grantsburg for all their coverage. Thank you to our assistant coaches Steph Berkholtz and Lisa McKinley for working so hard to better our athletes. And thank you to our athletes for making track such a blast to coach. See you all next March, when we'll have some new faces. What a week! Somehow I always seem to forget just how exciting of a week this is every year. The tournaments have begun and we are advancing athletes on, getting closer to the State meet. For the Regional meet in Frederic on Monday, we are able to enter any eligible athlete. But there is a limit to how many we can enter, so that means it's the best of the best in each event. The top four finishers in each event advance to the next level, Sectionals.
We had been to Frederic last week for our Conference meet and returned for the Regional meet. Coach Hallberg and I had sorted out which athletes had the best prospects and in which events. This means sometimes having to cut athletes from events they are good at so that they can instead focus on events they are great at. Overall, we had seventeen athletes finish in the top four in seventeen different events. Senior Gracie Gerber qualified in all four of the events she participated in, a stunning accomplishment. Fellow senior Nate McKinley and freshman Alexis Slater each qualified in three events. Seniors Linda Harmon and David MacKean, sophomores Alli Peterson and Jared VanWatermeulen, and freshman Brody Bongaarts qualified in two events each. Other qualifiers included senior McKenzie Rombach, sophomores Amy Harmon, Derek Lee, and Kylie Robelia, and freshmen Chase Doornink and Sarah Chenal. We had seven first place finishes between boys and girls. Both teams placed third for their genders, a great accomplishment given the drop in numbers our teams had this year. It was a really solid performance across the board. Even the athletes who did not finish in the top four were putting in new personal records and great performances. But now there was only a couple days to turn around and try again at Sectionals. Thursday we drove to Cameron for the next level of the tournament. If you've never been to a Sectional meet, it's really worth going. The State meet is of course amazing to attend, but it's so big that it's just its own animal. But a Sectional meet is still a "normal" track meet. But it's big. Really big. I talked to some parents who were experiencing a Sectional for the first time and couldn't believe the city of tents and sea of athletes. The bleachers were packed. It's such a thrilling experience. What makes a Sectional so special is that every athlete competing had to earn a spot. Each of them had to place in the top four of their event three days earlier. That means you're seeing all skilled, talented athletes. It's so exciting to watch. Races are tight and competitive. You see longer races where runners pass and get passed, never knowing how it's going to end until the final stretch. It can be exhilarating but also stressful to watch. Oh, and heartbreaking. I watched a talented senior from a neighboring district fall to a fifth place finish in the final seconds of his race. I've seen our own athletes experience that in previous years. So many deserving athletes miss the opportunity to advance to State. Going into Sectionals, we had our eyes on a handful of events that we felt sure would advance to State. A couple more were borderline and might make it if things went really well. Generally, the borderline events didn't advance, but the rest did. We ended up with 11 athletes advancing to State in six events. It was a wild night. The girls 4x800m relay (Slater, McKenzie, Kylie, and Gracie) has been knocking huge chunks of time off their race for the past couple weeks and Thursday was no different. They finished third with the fastest run we've seen in that race since Gracie helped set the school record with Hallie Jensen, Brittanie Blume, and Violet Ohnstad in 2016. Gracie also anchored the 4x400m relay, along with Linda, Slater, and Sarah, which also finished third. This is actually the second time that Linda and Gracie will be running the 4x400m relay at State (the first time was in 2017). Thursday night this team beat the 2017 team's State time. Speaking of returning to State, Alli went last year in triple jump, having set the school record at Conference. She returns this year in triple jump, with our eyes always on improving that record. Last year was a tough year for us because we had been bumped up to Division 2, putting us against much larger schools. We were quite literally the smallest school in the division. That made it really hard to advance athletes to the State meet. One athlete who appreciates that more than most is Nate, who finished fifth in the 400m dash at Sectionals last year. His time was blisteringly fast, but not enough for Division 2. Now that we are back in Division 3 (the smallest schools), we have more comparable competitors. Nate finished second in the 400m dash and will now get his much-deserved chance to run it in La Crosse. David has bounced back and forth between the 800m run and the 1600m run for the last couple years. He knocked out an amazing mile time at Sectionals last year, but this year he's focused more on his 800m and on Thursday is paid off. The fasted 800m time I've seen in my six years in Grantsburg is 2:05, which Erland Olson ran in 2014. David had run a 2:07 at Regionals, but knocked out a stunning 2:02 at Cameron. (Don't ask what his body had to sacrifice after his race to accomplish that.) David and Nate have been such solid runners and have picked time off their 400s for the last couple years. That has made the 4x400m relay the most exciting and stressful event for me. Derek and Jared have stepped up as sophomores to run incredible 400 times, both of them dropping to 54-55 seconds. They had caught the Chetek-Weyerhauser team by surprise on Monday with a narrow victory and we expected them to be out for blood. These guys were in the zone and continued knocking full seconds off of each leg of the relay. I've mentioned before that David and Nate enjoy few things more than chasing down another runner. They got that chance on Thursday, for a stunning conclusion to the meet and a time that places them currently fourth-fastest for the State meet. Before I move on, I have to comment on a couple Sectional performances that didn't qualify for State. Sophomore Amy Harmon has developed a real talent for pole vaulting this year. It's the most difficult event in track because it is so technical in so many different stages. But Amy has also highlighted a coaching fail for me, because I never managed to get a long enough pole for such a tiny athlete, but she nonetheless has been placing and scoring points with a pole that's too short. Then the practice before the Regional meet I started packing up the pole vault mats, only for her to place fourth and advance to Sectionals. I sheepishly had to put the mats back together for her to continue practicing. She vaulted 8'6" on Thursday, matching her personal best. Fortunately next year I'll be smart enough to get her a longer pole and we'll see more incredible vaults. And two freshmen boys have been running incredible times in the 800m and 1600m races. Brody Bongaarts has been unfazed by anything we throw at him, from filling in last minute in a 4x400m relay to running the 3200m race. He's been constantly improving his time in his two core races, running a very fast 5:03 at Regionals. Chase Doornink has been right there with him. In fact, they ran quite a bit of their mile side by side at Regionals, Chase finishing at 5:06. These times area already a bit bonkers for freshmen, but being this fast I told them they had to aim for sub-5 times. That's exactly what they were aiming for, but I wasn't sure whether it would happen or not. But, oh, it did. Brody shaved 10 seconds and Chase shaved 8 seconds, both finishing under 5:00. Frankly, it was ridiculous. Chase told me his dad had promised him $100 if he did, but I don't know what got into Brody. These guys are just crazy. So now we focus on La Crosse. If you've never been to the State meet, it's a bit insane. The stadium sits below the bluffs, with an absolutely gorgeous view, with thousands of participants and thousands of spectators. It's thrilling to be there and there's hardly a race or event that isn't exciting to watch. You see athletes from all three divisions, you see school records being broken, and sometimes state records, too. It's two days of track and field right into your veins. If you get a chance to come watch, it's worth it. It's such an incredible opportunity and privilege to be there, to be one of the top 16 competitors in the state for your division. There's also a sense of relief in being here, because this is the final step. Obviously we want to do the best we can and score and place and get on the podium, but there's great satisfaction in simply being here and knowing this is the end. For our seniors, it's a perfect capstone to their high school career. For the underclassmen, it's a taste of next year and doing it all over again, and trying to make it back to La Crosse again. |