Cyclones run at Bruce Henderson Invitational

HCHS Girls

Monday at Atlantic High School, the HCHS Cyclones girls track and field team finished in fifth place with 61 points, 78 points behind Glenwood, who won the event with 139 points.

“Collectively, this was our best meet of the season, and we are so happy with the girls efforts,” said Cyclone Head Coach Jenny Hamilton.

In field events, Aubree Wegner placed fourth in the high jump with 4’ 6”, not far behind Avah Underwood of St. Albert, who won the event with 5’ 2”. Abby Curren and Bristol Loudy participated in shot put and discus with Curren throwing 27-00.25 in shot put and Loudy throwing 78-11 in discus.

“Throwers started us off with some huge momentum and huge PRs,” Hamilton said. “Bristol added 6 inches and 2 feet to her shot and disc respectively. Abby added 1.5 feet and 7 feet to her shot and disc respectively.”

On the track, Wegner was the fastest Cyclone among the girls in the 100m dash, finishing seventh with a time of 13.91, less than a second behind Allison Koontz of Glenwood who won the event with 13.07.

Samantha Ineson was the fastest Cyclone in the 200m dash, finishing fourth overall with a time of 28.43 with teammate Kami Stork was two places behind her, coming in sixth with 28.54.

In the 800m run, Tobina Bachman and Brylee Schechinger both set personal records. Bachman went 3:24.65, while Schechinger finished with 2:32.53.

During relay races, the 4x800 team which featured, Ava Freund, Sadie Alberti, Allie Anderson, and Taylor Bieker all setting the bar high with strong performances.

“Our 4x800 of Sadie, Allie, Taylor, and Ava all ran their best 800s of the season and finished under 11 minutes, a PR for that crew,” Hamilton said.

The shuttle hurdle relay team which featured Jaylee Schmitz, Ari Daniels, Stork, and Baleigh Sette also had a high finish taking third place with 1:12.20, just 8/10 of second behind Atlantic, who won the event with 1:11.38.

The distance medley team that had Lindsey Sonderman, Paige Sonderman, Ineson, and Stork also took third place with 4:26.46, finishing 5+ seconds behind St. Albert, who won the event with 4:21.17.

Wegner also managed to set a personal record as one of the four legs of the 4x400 relay team helping her team to a fourth place finish with 4:17.68.

“Aubree battled her heart out to anchor the 4x400 and finished with a six second PR for the relay,” Hamilton said.

Schmitz performed well in the 100m hurdle race originally taking a first place finish, but later ended up coming in second overall with a time of 17.16 due to a re-race by Atlantic later on in the event.

“In Jaylee’s heat of the open, an opponent got caught up and hurdles went flying,” Hamilton added. “Jay did an excellent job of keeping her composure and won the race. Unfortunately, Atlantic did a strange thing an hour later. They set up a flight of hurdles in a single lane and allowed their runner a second shot at the race.”

The Cyclones next event will be Thursday at 4:15 p.m. in Shenandoah at the Hawkeye-10 Championships where they will be one of 11 schools competing.

“So much of success is showing up and surrounding yourself with people who you know will push you closer to the best version of yourself,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got a lot of that happening on this team and the future looks bright.”

HCHS Boys

Monday in Atlantic, the HCHS Cyclones boys track and field team returned to action placing fourth overall at the Bruce Henderson Invitational with 83.50 points, 48.50 points behind the winner Atlantic, who won with 132 points.

“Definitely a very quick turnaround for a lot of our guys,” said Cyclone Head Coach Sam Brummer. “We tried to give them some events and keeping working on the things we felt we need to work on, but also give other people chances to run in some events, and I thought given what we had to work with and what we put on the track, it was really productive meet for us.”

On the track during the 100m dash, Cade Sears took the night off from the event, but the Cyclones still won the event with Matthew Sorfonden taking first place with a time of 11.08 coming into the event seeded at 10.96.

“It was another chance for him [Sorfonden] to kind of get in the blocks, keep working on starts, and working on that part of his craft, and seeing what he can do,” Brummer said. “Sorfonden is more than capable of running that race and doing very well with it. He’s ran it for us all year.”

Even though Sears didn’t participate in the 100m dash, that didn’t stop him from performing well in other events as he managed to win the 200m dash with 21.97.

Sears also helped lead the 4x100 and 4x200 relay teams which also featured Sorfonden, Brehden Eggerss, and Hagen Sorensen to first place finishes with times of 42.64 and 1:29.39, beating out Glenwood in both events. Sorensen filled in for Lukas Francis who was not in attendance at the event after Francis helped lead the 4x200 team to a new school record Friday afternoon at the Drake Relays.

“It’s that manta that you hear with next man up mentality and something we’ve used in football for quite a while that’s served us very well whether somebody gets injured or something happens, you’ve got to have somebody else come up and fill that relay,” Brummer said. “We’re certainly not just going to wash our 4x100 and 4x200 aside because we don’t have one person available to run it, so we’re going to give somebody the opportunity to run with it so to speak.”

Joseph Bragg turned in a strong performance with a fifth place finish in the 800 meter run going for 2:10.14, just under 12 seconds behind Andrew Smith of Glenwood who won the event with 1:58.15.

“He’s a worker,” Brummer said of Bragg. “He’s probably one of the more well-rounded kids I’ve probably ever worked with, from being in the FFA to the lead trumpet in the very successful jazz band that we have, and obviously cross country and track events and I’m sure he’s probably in 17 other clubs and organizations that I don’t know about or don’t know the acronyms for, but he goes out and wants to do well, wants to know what he’s not doing well, so he can improve on that, and is willing to do whatever we ask him.”

In field events, Franz Reisz won discus with a throw of 159-06, beating out Xavier Darrow of Atlantic who came in second place with 146-03.

Eggerss won the long jump event with 20-03.50, beating out Colton Rasmussen of Atlantic who came in second place with a jump of 19-10.00.

“He got first, but it wasn’t his best jump,” Brummer said. “Maybe it’s a quick turnaround or maybe it’s over jumping. We’d like to get him back up in those 21s. I think that’s a spot he needs to be at this stage in the year and maybe for whatever reason we’re just not quite there after being up in there for most of the year. We’ll address it and figure it out and talk with him.”

The Cyclones return to action Thursday at 4:15 p.m. for the Hawkeye-10 Championships where they’ll compete against 10 other schools.

“The Hawkeye-10 is traditionally one of the more competitive track meet in terms of conference standings with the wide variety of schools we have,” Brummer said. “Lewis Central is by far the biggest school in our conference. Then you have smaller schools in St. Albert and Clarinda who may not be able to compete in team standings, but can definitely turn out more than competitive relays or individual events as well.”