By Jared Schmeltzer
Reporter
The Merrill boys track and field team hosted their indoor season opener on Tuesday afternoon. The Bluejays dominated as a team taking first place, scoring 128 team points compared to second place Edgar High Schools 78.50.
In the short distance running the Bluejays showed their dominance taking first and second place in both the 50 and 200 meter dash. In the 50 meter dash Adam Laehn took the gold with a time of 6.20 seconds, good enough for eight points. James Pawlicki didn’t lag far behind as he finished in second place with a time of 6.30 seconds, giving the Bluejays another six points. In the 200 meter dash Laehn and Pawlicki were able to take first and second again, as Laehn finished in first with a time of 25.60 seconds and Pawlicki took second with a time of 26.10 seconds. In the 400 meter Cutler Nowak of Merrill had a solid showing taking third with a time of 1:00.10, with teammate Jacob Romang shortly behind taking fourth with a time of 1:00.30. The 800 meter run saw the Bluejays get a third place finish with Taron Gutowski running a time of 2:26.80. In the 1600 meter run Dominic Laufenberg took second place with a time of 5:10.00, only one second behind the first place finisher. Stephen Koch got a third place finish in the 3200 meter run with a time of 12:42.10.
The 50 meter hurdles saw another first place finisher for Merrill. Issac Meyer finished with a time 8.00 seconds for first place, while teammate Aidan Tautges finished in third place with a time of 8.30. Meyer and Tautges had a nice showing in the 55 yard hurdles as well with Meyer taking first again with a time of 8.10 seconds and Tautges taking second this time with a time of 8.70. In the 4×200 meter relay Merrill was able to get a second place finish with a time of 1:42.00. The 4×200 meter relay was run by Dominic Laufenberg, Tyler Wolff, Nikolas Zastrow and Jackson Rammer.
In the Jumping events Jared Olhoff had a nice day, taking home two first place finishes and a second place finish, Olhoff took first in the high jump with a height of 6 feet. Jared was also able to take first in the triple jump, jumping a distance of 42-05.00. In the long jump Olhoff took second place with a distance of 20-01.50, right behind Merrill’s Adam Laehn who jumped a distance of 20-09.00. In the shot put Merrill had fourth and fifth place finishers. In fourth place was Isaiah Heyel with a distance of 37-10.00. In fifth place was Josiah Nohr with a distance of 37-09.50.
The Merrill boys track team will be back in action on Thursday, April 5 as they hit the road traveling to Stevens Point with the meet starting at 3:45 p.m.