The Bluejay boys exploded out of the blocks into a new season with a pair of meets in Stevens Point last week.
They competed in Tuesday’s quad meet to kick off the season, then ran 13th in Saturday’s highly competitive 28-team indoor at UW-SP, captured Appleton North (89.5) over Kimberly (56) and Kettle Moraine (53). The Valley was represented by SPASH (4th, 49), Marshfield (5th, 45), D.C. Everest (7th, 30) and Merrill (13th, 15).
Head coach Kurt VandenHeuvel learned some things about his team.
“We’ve got some depth this year,” he said. “We have a pretty good freshman class coming in. We’ve got some young guys running really well. We got to see some of the guys that are really important to our team perform well. It was nice to see their performance didn’t fall off from where they were last year. All the guys-like Dan Blakeslee, Kriss Philipp, Eric Ball, Nick Peterson-are hitting their marks. Kriss ran his best time indoors.”
On Saturday, Philipp qualified 2nd of 72 runners and placed 3rd in the finals of the 55M dash, just .01 out of 2nd and .05 out of 1st.
Blakeslee cleared 6′ 0″ in the high jump to rank 4th of 49 jumpers. The 800M team of Hoffmann, Peterson, Lucas Lee and Philipp finished 7th in 1:38.94. The 3200M squad of Bryce Litschauer, Dalton Wilding, Michael Seaman and Paul Theorin ran 8th (in 8:54.36), as did the 1600M group of Blakeslee, Wilding, Lee and Litschauer (3:43.88).
Other solid finishes came from: Tyler Schmidt (11th, shot put, 45′ 1.25″); Ethan Schneider (13th, 55M hurdles, :08.69/16th, 400M, :55.44); Blakeslee (14th, LJ, 19′ 1″); James Nohr (14th, 400M, :55.27); Peterson (19th, LJ, 18′ 9.5″); Jacob Jensen (22nd, 800M, 2:18.02); Andrew Seaman (24th, 1600M, 5:07.98).
“Our 4-by-8 team really ran well with some new additions,” VandenHeuvel said.
Streakin’ in the quad
Tuesday’s non-scored scrimmage provided a good baseline for returning and new team members alike.
“Eric Ball vaulted a strong 12′ 6″ on Tuesday, basically three inches off his personal best,” VandenHeuvel said.