The Hopkins boys’ a
nd girls’ track teams both were runners-up in the Hopkins Invitational Saturday. Both the Wayland boys’ and girls’ team finished fifth.
There were 11 teams in the males’ competition and a dozen for the women.
The Lady Vikings came up just two points shy of the top spot, as Lowell, a Division 1 school, had 257 teams to Division 3 Hopkins’ 255. Wayland finished with 156 points.
It was a big day for Kennedy Miedema, as she took first in the open 800 meters and ran a leg for both the 1600- and 3200-meter relay relay teams. Her 2:29.13 clocking touched out teammate runner-up Rachael Weber by just a little more than a second.
She later joined Weber, Josie Freybler and Samantha Myers to take the 3200 relay in 10:42 flat, more than six seconds faster than nearest competitor Wayland, who had Sydney Couturier, Haley Bilger, Anna Kidwell and Riley Shepherd. Miedema also hooked up with Forbes, Freybler and Madeline Krcatovich for a winning time of 4:23.91, again most closely pursued by Wayland, with Rachel Zywiczykski, Kennedy Richardson, Couturier and Dav-Lynn Butler, who checked in at 4:28.08.
Another individual winner for Hopkins was Bailey Ballard, who was the only female all day who threw the discus more than 100 feet, a whopping 109-4, more than 14 feet better than the runner-up.
Julia Forbes picked up a couple of seconds during the day. She was runner-up in the 100-meter dash at 13:53 and in the long jump at 15-3.25.
Ellen Bregg, Allie DeBoer, Freybler and Forbes combined efforts to take second in the 800 relay. Nicole Opolski and Shelby Henshaw went 2-3 in the shot put.
Weber also came up with a third in the 3200 run and Henshaw claimed third place in the discus.
For Wayland, Kennedy Richarson had solid day, winning the 100-meter hurdles in 17.95 seconds and taking second in the 300 hurdles in 50.80, only three-tenths of a second off the winning time, and in the high jump at 4-8.
As expected, Quincy Collings scored a couple of first-place finishes, taking the high jump at 6-2 and 20 feet, 6.25 inches in the long jump.
The 1600-meter relay quartet of Isaac Kukulies, Lennart Baldreich, Jared Coad and Hayden Graczyk checked in first at 3:39.21, about a quarter of a second faster than Lowell.
The 400-meter and 800-meter relay foursomes both captured second place. The 400 included Spencer Timm, Wyatt Stegeman, Collings and Anthony Steffens completed the race in 45.51 seconds and Timm, Graczyk, Collings and Steffens hooked up for a 1:33.14 clocking in the 800.
Michael Francis sneaked into the runner-up slot behind Collings in the high jump by clearing 6-0 for the first time in his career.
Steffens took third at 23.89 seconds in the 200-meter dash, though he had the quickest effort in the preliminaries.
Wayland had several outstanding individual performances. Both Owen Glass and Perry Carter cleared 12-0 in the pole vault to beat everybody else by a foot. Mccarty Carpenter threw the discus 124-02.50 to win by more than two feet. Carson Niewenhuis won the open 400, his specialty, in 52.46 seconds.
Carter, Glass, Jeremy Pletcher and Carson Nieuwenhuis finished second in the 3200 relay.
The Viking boys and girls will be on their home field again Friday to be host for the O-K Silver Conference meet. Both go into the action with 5-0 dual meet records.
PHOTO; Perry Carter cleared 12-0 for the first time in his career at the Hopkins Invitational Saturday and he and teammate Owen Glass shared top honors. (Photo courtesy Hope Thurston Carter)
