High school shorts

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

•  Thanks to Karin Tank — I forgot to thank Karin Tank in last week’s paper for taking pictures for the Pope County Tribune at the State Track Meet.  Normally, Holly Kovarik has been helping me out with track pictures at away meets, but she was unable to attend state so Karin was nice enough to go.

It’s not easy to take pictures of your child, especially at a state meet, but Karin was nice enough to give it a shot and she did a tremendous job.  I think most of the pictures are featured on the Laker track Facebook page and we were only able to use a few for the paper.

Thank you Karin!  It got me to thinking about the times I had to take pictures of my kids at state meets. I vividly remember taking pictures at State Boys Basketball in 2006 when my two sons made it to state, and in 2007 when my son, Daniel, won the gold medal in the state 110 meter hurdles at Hamline University.  Thank God, I remembered to turn the camera on.

•  Girls track team should be strong for many years  — Speaking of track, the Laker track and field program should be good for many years, especially the girls’ team, which featured many very-talented ninth and 10th graders on this year’s team.  The Lakers lost a number of great seniors from this year’s team, including state entrants McKenzie Luetmer and Brooke Kolstoe, but among the state qualifiers were ninth-graders Olivia Danielson, Lauryn Ankeny and Jayda Kolstoe, and junior Teagan Stark.

There were 50 members of this year’s girls track team.  Among the other returning athletes next year are sophomore Dacia Fleury, ninth-graders Piper Citrowske Lee, Phemie Oeltjen and Alia Randt, and eighth-grader Esryn Dahl, who were also all key members of this year’s girls track team.  Add in another’s year of improvement from the other returning athletes, including several younger sisters of current great athletes, and the Lakers should be strong for years to come.

While the field events might have been somewhat of a weakness this year for the Lakers, the field events should be a strength in the future and the hurdling events should also be strong with Lauryn Ankeny, Lyle Stadtherr, Brooklyn Meyer and Aubrey Stark all returning as hurdlers for the Lakers.  Of course, the relays, middle-distance and long-distance events will continue to be strong and, with Mya Lindemann graduating, Fleury will take over as the top sprinter for the team.  Yes, I missed the state track meet this year, but with the Lakers having a chance to contend for the state title in the years to come, you can bet I’ll be there again soon.

•  So many close races — Members of the Minnewaska track and field team competed at the state meet last week at St. Michael-Albertville and boy, were there a lot of close races.

In the boys’ 400 meter prelims, the top eight times came within 1.02 of each other from a low of 50.12 to a high of 51.14, including Maeson Tank’s time of 51.03.  You’d think there would be more spread in the 800, but in the 800 meter prelims the top eight runners were within .97 of each other from a low of 1:57.09 to a high of 1:58.06.  Tank’s time of 1:59.89 placed 11th and missed the finals.

You’d expect the boys’ 100 meter dash prelims to be close and, in fact, all 19 runners in the prelims finished within .66 of each other from a low of 11.01 to a high of 11.67.  How would you like to try and pick the winners from that race?  And, in the girls’ 300 meter hurdles, the top seven runners in the prelims finished within .98 of each other from a low of 45.89 to a high of 46.87, including Lauryn Ankeny’s time of 46.37, which broke a school record.

Speaking of records, there were also a lot of records broken this year, including Maeson Tank in the 800, Lauryn Ankeny in the 300 hurdles, McKenzie Luetmer in the triple jump, the boys 3200 meter relay team of Tank, Nick Ankeny, Jayce Kovarik and James Ward and the girls 1600 meter relay team of Ankeny, Luetmer, Olivia Danielson and Teagan Stark.

•  YME and BBE to state baseball — Well, out of 29 area schools that we cover in the WCC, Camden and Central Minnesota Conferences, YME and BBE were the only schools to advance to state.  YME won the Section 3A title with wins over Canby (20-1), Tracy Area (4-2), RTR (2-0) and RTR again (3-2), while BBE earned the Section 6A title with wins over St. John’s Prep (11-0), USA (8-7), KMS (6-5), New York Mills (5-4) and Parker Prairie (4-2).

At state, YME (18-5 final record) fell to second-seeded New Ulm Cathedral in the first round and went on to place sixth, while BBE upset the top-seeded South Ridge team in the opener, 2-1 before losing twice to place fourth overall.  During the win over South Ridge, BBE (14-13 overall record) tried a trick pickoff play at second base in the bottom-half of the seventh inning which worked to perfection.