Story originally printed in the Holmen Courier or online at www.holmencourier.com
Published - Friday, May 16, 2008
Six 1sts good for 2nd for girls at MVC meet
Holmen High School's girls track and field team got event wins from Lauren Hicke in the high jump, Whitney Croell in the 100-meter hurdles, Jen Buchner in the discus and from three relays, but it was far from enough for Holmen to catch Logan Tuesday, as the Vikings finished second for the second straight year at the Missisippi Valley Conference meet at Logan.
HHS head coach Paul Berge said before the meet that he would have been delighted with a second-place finish. So ...
“I am delighted with second,” Berge said. “We knew Logan was going to be strong, but they were even stronger than I thought.”
Logan won five events, but finished 39 points ahead of Holmen. Onalaska also had five event-winners, but was 10 1/2 points back of the Vikings.
Hicke and HHS freshman Angela Berkley each cleared 5 feet in the high jump, though Hicke required fewer misses. Hicke was the leading returning underclassmen in the event from last year's meet.
“Angela Berkley was definitely a surprise,” Berge said. “She's got good springs and (boys head and girls sprints coach) Steve (King) is working with her on making a breakthrough in the mile relay, too.”
Croell won the 100 hurdles in 16.05 seconds, .16 of a second clear of Logan senior Emily Betz. Buchner won the discus with a top toss of 104 feet, 7 inches, nearly 12 feet ahead of Tomah's Caitlin Sweet.
“Whitney winning the 100s was a little bit of a surprise, and to go 1-3 (Kristi Kamprud, 92-6) in the discus was good” Berge said. “For the most part we scored where we thought we would and we came through in most of our strong events.”
Hicke also had a hand in all two of the Vikings relay winners. She teamed with Jessica Wakefield, and Anna and Leah Jagodzinski to take the 4X100 relay, while Hanna Niccum replacing Anna Jagodzinski on the second leg of the 4X200 champion. Taber Holmes, Mandy Haupt, Martha Dibb and Kali Johnson combined to win the 4X800 relay.
Croell also was second in the 300 hurdles in 48.91 seconds, but was more than 1 1/2 seconds off the pace of Logan's Grace Lohman. She teamed with Angela Berkley, Martha Dibb and Hicke to take second in the 4X400, with Logan's Rita Rabb outdueling what appeared to be a less than 100 percent Hicke on the anchor leg for the title. Buchner added a third-place toss of 31-8 in the shot put.
HHS had its relay success despite missing top sprinter Cathryn Helmers due to a calf injury. Berge said he hopes to have the junior back for Monday's regionals, which begin with the field events at 3:30 p.m. at Empire Stadium.
Niccum finished just behind Croell in both hurdles races, taking third in the 100s in 16.79 seconds and the 300s in 49.05 seconds. Leah Jagodzinski added a sixth-place time of 27.85 seconds in the open 200, while Wakefield added a sixth-place time of 13.54 seconds in the open 100.
Jessie Heiden paced the Holmen distance crew, taking fourth in the two-mile in 12 minutes. 19.95 seconds and seventh in the mile in 5:29.15. Michaela Miller was just behind in both events, in 12:21.3 in the two-mile and in 5:30.23 in the mile.
Holmes added a sixth-place time of 1:04.48 to her relay leg. Emma Waffenschmidt was fourth after clearing 8 feet in the pole vault, while Haupt was eighth in the half-mile in 2:31.58.
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