JWP’s track and field athletes have broken so many records, we are starting to sound like a broken record ourselves sharing this news every week. Is there a record for most broken records in a season? We don’t know.
What we do know is that this week has been over the top with five school records either broken or tied by Bulldog track athletes. The boys only had one meet at Waseca this week on Thursday, May 17, while most of the girls rested.
Waseca Meet
The boys definitely had fun in this one. They took second out of seven teams, barely missing first with 141.5 points. The hosting Bluejays took the gold with 143 points. The boys placed well, considering larger teams like New Ulm and Kasson-Mantorville were at the meet.
And that was all thanks to three school records and one record tied. The 4×100 relay team of Dylan McWaters, Isaiah Berndt, Daulton Bauer, and Ryan Kronbach — who broke the school record last week — broke their own record again with a time of 44.68. The same four broke the school record in the 4×200 relay, clocking in at 1:33.11. Both times earned them first-place finishes. Individually,
Kronbach broke yet another record (his own) in the triple jump, while Berndt tied a school record in the 200 with a time of 23.5; this record was previously broken by Jay Stencel in 1991.
On top of that, Kaden Baker placed first in the 110-meter hurdles, and McWaters was right behind him in second. Kronbach also earned first in the high jump.
Second-place finishers for the boys were McWaters in the long jump, Memphis James in the high jump, the 4×800 relay team (Teagan Mulder, Alex Kleve, Luke Cahill, and Tyson Kronbach), and Isaac Gahlon in the pole vault. Third-place finishers were Cahill in the 800 and Baker in the 300 hurdles.
The JWP girls took seventh out of seven teams with 12, which was to be expected given most of them were resting. The girls who placed in the meet were MaKenzie Westphal, 5th in the 200; Anne Adams, 6th in high jump; Paige Walz, 7th in pole vault and the long jump; and Clare Groh, 8th in pole vault.
Girls’ State True Team Meet
After a long day in Stillwater, the girls finished 9th out of 12 Class A teams at the meet. While there, they must have been inspired by the boys’ record-breaking performance in Waseca and figured they had to get at least one of their own to end the week strong.
This time, it was sophomore Nevaeh Weimert in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:01.51. The record-breaking run earned her second place, only a second and a half shy of first. She had the highest place of the day for the JWP girls’ athletes.
The 4×200 relay team of Weimert, Brielle Bure, Onikia Herme, and MaKaela Westphal took third place, with MaKenzie Westphal collecting another bronze in the 800 and Lilly Strauss leaping to third in the long jump. Herme took fourth in the 300-meter hurdles. Lauren White placed fifth 3200. The top-ten finishes were Aubrey Weedman, 9th in shot put, and MaKenzie Westphal, 10th in the 3200.
As summer nears for JWP and the season winds down, both track and field teams will focus their attention on subsections.
They will revisit United South Central on Thursday, May 23, for the meet to try to claim their spot as the top teams in their subsection.
