The Wayland boys’ track team scored 20 points in the Division 2 state meet Saturday to finish eighth and Lady Wildcat Corrina Courser placed in the top five in both hurdling events.
Most of the points for the Wildcat boys were scored in relays:
• Devin Jakey, Ian Thompson, Caleb Wolf and and Seth Sevenski-Popma took third in the 400-meter relay with a time of 43.74 seconds. The quartet was just two-hundredths of a second away from second.
• Jakey, Sevenski-Popma, Josh Butler and Wolf finished fourth in the 800-meter relay in 1:30.37.
• Wolf, Jakey, Butler and Sevenski-Popma captured fourth in the 1600-meter relay with a 3:35.25 clocking.
Sevenski-Popma, who collected four medals on the day in his final prep track meet, was fifth in the open 400 with his personal best of 50.25 seconds.
The 3200-meter relay team did not score, but turned its best time ever and finished 17th at 8:18.26 with Elijah Gamelin, Caleb Pletcher, Alessandro Porta and Josh Butler. It was particularly thrilling for Porta, a foreign exchange student, who went back to Spain that weekend after competing.
The Wayland girls’ team scored eight points, finishing in a tie for 32nd place.
Courser ran a time of 15.53 second in the 100-meter high hurdles to take fifth and she did personal best 47.06 to take seventh in the 300-meter hurdles. She finished 10th in the open 200-meter dash.
The Wayland boys a week earlier finished 11th in the state team (MITCA) track meet.
The Division 2 state meet at Zeeland Stadium was delayed often during the day because of inclement weather.
It was not a good day for Hopkins, as both the boys’ and girls’ team failed to score a point.
Evangelina Helderop finished 10th in the open 400 in her personal best time of 60.81 seconds.
School pole vault record holders Trey Collins and freshman Logan Klinge didn’t score in their specialty. Collins, a junior, cleared 13-4 to take 14th place and Klinge went 12-4 to finish 20th.
Junior Todd Henley finished 27th in the 3200-meter run in just over 10 minutes and Collins failed to score in the high jump.
(Photos courtesy of Terry Ellis and Josh Cline)