Girls, boys relays and Gonzalez race to finals; field participants finish strong
The first day of the 2014 Minnesota State Class A Track-and-Field Meet at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Friday, June 6, proved to be a strong one for all of this year’s Mountain Lake Area (MLA) Wolverine participants.
The girls 4 x 200 relay team (Mikayla Falk, Emily Jahnke, Brianna Soutthivong and Lydia Hildebrandt), boys 4 x 400 relay team (Jared Saunders, Cody Klassen, Caleb Bargen and Jose Gonzalez) and Jose Gonzalez in the 800-meter all advanced to the Saturday, June 7 finals at the end of preliminary action – and all also set school records.
The girls 4 x 2 qualified for the finals by finishing fifth in their Heat 2 prelims with a time of 1:47.22.
Meanwhile, the boys 4 x 400, running in the first heat of the preliminaries, finished fourth in that race, running to a time of 3;30.33.
Jose Gonzales, running in the second heat of preliminaries, passed the finish in second with a time of 1:56.50.
The top nine relay teams and individuals participating in a preliminary race advance to the next day’s finals – the top two from each heat, plus the next five best times.
In addition, in pole vault competition, Hunter Quiring was 10th with a vault of 12′ 0.” Quiring closes out his high school career with a state meet performance – as well as earlier performing to a career-best PR (personal record) in the Section 3A pole vault, clearing the bar at 12′ 7″ to end up in second and punching his ticket to state. Tyler Tappe from Pequot Lakes was first with 15′ 0.”
On Saturday, Gonzalez added participation in the long jump to his state meet agenda, advancing as section runner-up. The 2014 Mountain Lake Public High School graduate was fifth in the event with a jump of 18′ 10.” Noah Carlson of Rushford/Peterson was first with a jump of 20′ 6.” In the 800-meter run finals, Gonzalez finished sixth with a time of 1:59.79. Winning the 800 was Waseca’s Shane Streich with 1:55.14.
Falk, Jahnke, Soutthivong and Hildebrandt ran to a seventh-place finish in the 4 x 200 with a time of 1:48.28, giving Falk another state meet memory as she closes out her high school track-and-field career. First went to the relay team from Osakis (Makayla Hoglin, Brittney Sadlemeyer, Abigail Stroup and Hannah Szech) and their time of 1:45.63.
In the 4 x 400, Saunders, Klassen, Bargen and Gonzalez made it to the medal stand to claim 9th, racing to a time of 3:35.72. It was the final race of their track-and-field careers for Klassen and Gonzalez. The quartet from Rochester Lourdes (Nick Steinmetz, Dakota Streit, Kane Carstens and McKay Karstens) won the event with a time of 3:21.41.
The MLA coaching staff consists of Head Coach Paul Metcalf, Scott Boelke, Matt Anderson and Brian Oeltjenbruns.
