MHS Track and Field WIAA DI Sectionals at DC Everest Boys Team Comments. Reflections

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MHS Track and Field 5.25.2017 WIAA DI Sectionals at DC Everest Boys Team Comments Reflections CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON IS HARD Sorry this comment sheet is so late.

Add to that classes, and finals for seniors, and it was a tough five days. Monday I left home at 7:00 am and walked back in the door at 11:45 pm that s nearly a 17 hour day.

1 MHS Track and Field WIAA DI Sectionals at DC Everest Boys Team Comments Reflections CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON IS HARD Sorry this comment sheet is so late. It was an awfully long week last week, with the long drive up to Superior on Monday, the middle school meet on Tuesday and the long drive to DC Everest on Thursday. Add to that classes, and finals for seniors, and it was a tough five days. Monday I left home at 7:00 am and walked back in the door at 11:45 pm that s nearly a 17 hour day. Tuesday I left home at 7:20 am and walked back in the door at 8:30 pm a 13 hour day. Wednesday I left home at 7:20 am and I walked back in the door at 5:10 pm (that s a pretty typical day). So I hit 40 hours of right there, on Wednesday. On Thursday I left home at 7:10 am and I got home at 11:15 a 16 hour day. Friday was a little easier I got home at 4:40. So that was a 65 hour work week. Quite a bit of it was exhausting - bus rides, track meets, final exams, sub sandwiches, fast food, excitement, boredom and fatigue all at the same time. The thing is, you were all there with me. You had to do it as well, and manage your grades and time with families and homework and finals and social life. It s exhausting. And tough. In the end, if you do it right, you get a PR. Sometimes, if you can manage it, you make it to sectionals and, occasionally, to state. It s really difficult to do, though. It s this way in any sport, at nearly any level. In cross-country it might be a long bus ride to Tomah on a Saturday to run in the rain. In football it might be a long bus ride to Menasha on a Friday playing in front of 4,000 people. In basketball it might be a Thursday night level 3 playoff game in LaCrosse at 7:00, then home by 12:00. As you advance through championship season it gets harder and harder to win, to PR or to qualify. We really try hard in track to minimize this stuff during the regular season. Our furthest away meet during this past regular season was Mondovi. We only had one weekend meet, at UW Stout on a Saturday, and we hosted a bunch of meets at home, so we didn t even have to travel much. If you went to every JV meet, every varsity meet, the Freshmen/Sophomore meet and ran at the BRC and Regionals and Sectionals, you only got on the bus ten times over the course of the season. Only one athlete did that Logan Sorenson. One other athlete was on the bus nine times Simon Fichter he was at every away meet except Old Abe. Most of our kids were only at away meets, and only got on the bus, seven times. So, for most of you, the schedule is manageable - occasionally it s a meet at River Falls and we get back at 10:30 on a Tuesday. Occasionally New Richmond Relays is right before Prom and we get home at night at 9:30 and it s a busy weekend. Then there is Championship Season. It s a grind. It can be extremely hard to PR after a long bus ride on a hard surface at Superior. It can be even more difficult to PR coming back to DC Everest three days later. So if you went to Sectionals and ran a PR, way to go! If you are an underclassmen and you went through the grind, and made it to Sectionals, and did your best, but missed a PR, then that s great, too. You have some experience about the grind of Championship Season, and that experience will help you quite a bit moving forward. SECTIONAL BALANCE With Sectionals, everyone is dreaming of a trip to state. Everyone. Even the kid that barely qualified for sectionals that kid who knows he s going to get last he s still dreaming. He might be dreaming of opponents being disqualified or false starts or a huge, out of body performance. He knows he doesn t have

2 a shot, but he s dreaming of state. The thing is, you can t control your opponents. You can PR. That s all. Run your race, throw your throw, jump your jump. That s it. There are 8 Division I sectionals. Each sectional sends 3 athletes to state in each event. That allows for 24 state qualifiers in each event. In rare cases there are extra qualfiers. If you are fourth or fifth or whatever in a sectional, but your time (or height or distance) places you in the top 8 of all qualifiers, then you qualify for state. Imagine a super sectional of five 1600m guys that all run 4:08 or 4:09. They are the five fastest guys in the state, and all of them have times that place them in the top eight qualifiers, so the fourth and fifth place guys qualify as well. Every year there is an extra qualifier or two in D1 boys. It s much more common in D2 and D3. Anyway, there are 8 Division I sectionals, and each sectional sends three guys to state. No sectional is great at everything. Due to the nature of athletics and competition, sectionals tend to be great at certain things. The Green Bay area, for example, has great pole-vaulters. The Milwaukee sectionals have wonderful sprinters. The Madison area has amazing distance runners. Occasionally our sectional is loaded in an event or two. Check this out: 2005 Boys WIAA D1 1600m Run - Section 2 NAME SCHOOL SEED FINAL PTS 1 Chris Rombough 12 New London 4: : Jesse Merkel 12 Menomonie 4: : David Pede 11 WI Lutheran 4: : Ryan Birkholz 12 Burlington 4: : Brent Kann 12 Rice Lake 4: : Sam Braatz 11 Wausau East 4: : That year, in a very tactical race, with 90 degree temps, our sectional put three guys in the top six at state in the mile. In fact, that same year a kid from River Falls was 4 th at Sectionals in the 3200m, but got through to state as an extra qualifier, and finished 3 rd in the 3200m. Our sectional was loaded in the distance events back then. Or, more recently, there is this 2016 Girls WIAA D1 3200m Run NAME SCHOOL FINAL PTS 1 Aubrey Roberts JR Eau Clr Mem 10: Anne Frisbie SR River Falls 10: Brenda Hernandez SR Beloit Memorial 10: Annie Hughes SO Arrowhead 10: McKensey Van Wie JR Sun Prairie 10: Katie Hietpas JR Sun Prairie 10: Amanda Johnson SR Racine Park 11: Mason Kalander FR Holmen 11: In 2015 our sectional, and conference, had two girls in the top two in the state in the 3200m run. So, in some areas, kids qualify for state with times or efforts that aren t very solid. In other cases, a sectional is absolutely loaded and getting to state is nearly impossible. Where is our sectional good? Well, it s great for girls long sprinters. That girl from Wausau West is going to shatter the state record. It s also great for girls and boys hurdlers. I m guessing Drake Schneider will top three in both hurdle events, and Powers has a good shot of making finals. I m guessing the girl from Hudson will top two in both hurdle events. Sometimes, though, a sectional isn t very good at an event. If you have a chance you can go to the Performance List on our website under the state meet. The bottom three 800m runners all came from our sectional, and it isn t even close. They have times of 2:05, 2:05 and 2:06. Those times are sloooooow for state. Outside of our sectional, no one else qualified for state with a time slower than 1:59. But it was a tactical race, right? They went out in 68 seconds, which was slower than the girls 800m race for the first lap. But they kicked hard, finishing that 2 nd lap in 57 and 58. That s not an easy way to race, but this happens. It certainly would be inappropriate for some low-level varsity kid on a team in Milwaukee to look at this sectional and say, I ran 2:04 this year. I would make it to state if I lived up north. Distance events are strange, and anyone looking at those results will immediately tell you that it was a sit and kick race. But what about non-distance events? What about events like the triple jump and 300m hurdles and 4x100m relay?

3 Devin Williams, for example, was 6 th in out sectional. His jump of 43 1 would have qualified for state in 3 different sectionals. There are kids who will get to compete at the state meet who Devin would have beaten at sectionals. Instead he was 6 th at our sectional, which will most likely put two triple jumpers into the finals on Saturday. The 4x100m relay, for example, was 5 th at our sectional. Their time of would have qualified for state in three sectionals. Slower teams qualified. And while that may be frustrating, this is life. In a sectional with 17 teams, and only three individuals or relays qualify for state, most competitors are going to leave the meet disappointed. In the lives of most athletes, actually, there is far more disappointment than success. That s the nature of sport. You have those occasional, fleeting moments of greatness if you are lucky. Most of the time it s, I was soooo close. That s with every single athlete in every single sport; there some great moments with a bunch of almost moments. Looking at Sam s in the 300m hurdles, this was a great sectionals time, but not quite enough to qualify for state in any sectional. The slowest qualifier for the state meet ran a Sam was close, and he certainly can run with the best hurdlers in the state, but it wasn t quite enough on Thursday. Still, the events requiring a bunch of muscular endurance, power and technique, like the 300m hurdles, 800m and triple jump, are not friendly to underclassmen. This year no freshmen qualified for state in any individual event in D1 for boys. This hasn t happened ever, I don t think at least not since the 1980s. In the 300m hurdles only two sophomores qualified for state. In the 800m there were none. In the 100m dash, though, five sophomores qualified for state. In the 1600m there were five sophomores that qualified. In the 110h hurdles there were no sophomores that qualified for state. The slowest qualifying time was Sam has run a time that puts him right up there with the best upperclassmen hurdlers in the state. So look at the performance lists. You can see that Devin, Sam and our 4x100m team was right there. They would not have been out of place at the state meet. DISAPOINTMENT, PRIDE, AND A CAREER WELL DONE Husby s had quite a career. As a freshmen he was a MD runner, covering every event on the track from the 100m to the 800m. He looked up to guys like Jonah Breneman and Marcus Smith guys he s far surpassed in terms of accomplishments and times. That freshmen year he earned quite a few medals, but certainly no trip to state. He didn t even make it to sectionals. As a sophomore he flaked out a bit and missed a practice during the JV BRC meet (so he could go to the meet and watch his girlfriend compete). Rhett, the responsible one at the time, was angry about this and we pulled Evan from the 4x100m relay. Instead, Evan qualified for Sectionals in the open 400m dash, and the 4x100m relay failed to qualify for Sectionals, so Evan had accomplished his first goal. As a junior the goal was a trip to state and a school record in the 4x100m relay. Both goals were accomplished, and Evan was on pace to have a brilliant senior year. This summer the goals were a sub 11.0 in the 100m and a sub 51.0 in the 400m. The goal was a sub 43.0 in the 4x100m, and the state finals, with Justin Evans and Brian Wheeler and one more guy in that 4x100m relay. Then Evan got hurt. He battled back and did his rehab and worked very hard. He was ready to go for the start of the track season. He opened his indoor season with some awesome wins, then he pulled his hamstring a bit outdoors. He battled back again, leading the 4x100m relay team to a 1 st place finish at BRC and leading the entire boys team to a BRC Title. But on Thursday he missed his goal. The 4x100m relay was 5 th by.14 seconds. The other teams were just too fast. The boys 4x100m relay team ran 43.50, a time that will qualify for state most years, but it didn t do it this year. Three of the top six teams in the state were in our sectional. It s heartbreaking when you have a goal and don t quite accomplish it. This is the case for all sports. It reminds us just how difficult it is to qualify for state. It reminds us that we not only need talent, and work ethic, but a bit of luck doesn t hurt either. So Evan is done with his high school career, but now he s off to college. College track is a much different animal, but Evan is ready. The hardship, the success, the almost these experiences have forged Evan into a very solid young man with terrific character. BUT, it s important that he goes to college with a chip on his shoulder. I didn t accomplish my goals in high school either. I was supposed to go to state and finish in the top six, but I didn t even get through to Sectionals because I ran such a stupid race at Regionals. I went to college angry, and with a lot to prove, and it helped me have a very successful

4 college career. Husby needs to do the same, because our failures, or our almosts, can propel us to greatness if we have the mental fortitude to learn the lessons and accept the challenges that are presented to us. Anyway, great career, Husby. You are a great guy. Best of luck next year and keep in touch! YOUTH AND EXPERIENCE In the 4x800m relay we had two freshmen, a sophomore and a junior. The team qualified, but was going to be outmatched by some very solid 4x800m relay teams. It usually takes a sub 8:10 to qualify for state, and I knew our boys had a good shot of running a sub 9:00. That meant it was pretty unlikely they would advance. In fact, the team was probably going to finish 8 th of 8. But they made it to Sectionals, and not many freshmen in the school can say that. The hardest part was going to be the team running in space, especially considering the goal was a PR. Just run a PR. Don t worry about place or where you are. Run a PR. But it s hard to do if there is no one around. In the end only Ryan Westphal ran a PR time, a very impressive 2:13. That s the same time I ran as a sophomore, before becoming a year round runner. I ran 2:01 as a junior. A year ago Ryan hadn t broken 2:20. Now he s running 2:13. Maybe he can make the jump down to 2:01 next season. It wouldn t surprise me. He s getting stronger and more stable. He s growing into his tallness. As for Dane and Simon and Rocco, they missed their PRs. This team, though, has a great thing going. They can run 8:30 next year maybe faster. It will take mileage, and some tough winter running, but you can see the talent is there for some great middle distance runners. Of the top 8 finishers in the 800m dash in the BRC, six were seniors. Six are graduating. You guys can be right there, at the top of the conference, looking at establishing some BRC dominance in the 800m. It s going to take a bunch of work, but you have some experience now with Sectionals. You ve been through the grind. Take advantage of that and have a great off-season, a great winter and look to break 2:10 indoors next year. ON THE CUSP OF GREATNESS Sam and Devin, as I mentioned above, were close to qualifying for state. Both should make it next year, if they work hard this offseason and continue to develop. Devin could be, and should be, the premier jumper in the BRC and in the sectional next season. Sam should be the premier hurdler. Both could rewrite our record books. And what would a Sam / Devin 4x400m relay look like? What are these guys going to look like when they are seniors? How high will Sam jump? Can he go 6 4 next year? Can Devin? Either way, now it s time for them to lead. They have experience, they have toughness, they have talent and now they need to find a voice, because they can do some special things with this track team over the next two years. ACCOMPLISHING SOME GOALS Brian was 3 rd in the 100m. Wow, that was a close race! He managed to qualify for state by only a few hundredths of a second. At the elite level, the margins are far more narrow, so everything counts. The start counts, the lean counts, the stride over the final 30m counts everything counts. Usually we are on the losing end of the close battle. Usually everyone is on the losing end of the close battle, actually, and only the very rare select few win those battles. But this time Brian won the battle, was third in the race, and he made it to state. As for the long jump, Brian was able to qualify with a jump of This Brian is now a senior. He s qualified for state in the high jump (sophomore), 4x100m relay (junior) and long jump & 100m dash (senior). That s three trips to state in four different events in three years. He s been a conference champ four times in three different events and he s earned seven all-conference awards in track. He s the first guy since 2008 to qualify for state in two different events. That s pretty cool! It will take an or faster to qualify for finals, absent of any wind. I think Brian can do that.

He s gone 22 6 in the long jump. If he can replicate the 22 6, he ll make finals and get a medal at state, and that would be amazing. So his season isn t quite finished.

5 He s gone 22 6 in the long jump. If he can replicate the 22 6, he ll make finals and get a medal at state, and that would be amazing. So his season isn t quite finished. He has another couple of events on Friday, at 4:30. It will be fun, and if you can make it down to watch him please do. WIAA STATE MEET The WIAA State Meet is three divisions and two genders all at the same time. Qualifying rounds and some field event and distance finals are on Friday. The D1 groups go in the afternoon. Brian jumps at 4:30 and runs just after probably around 5:00. If he makes finals in the long jump that will be contested right away. If he makes finals in the 100m, he ll run the next day. On Saturday, it s all three divisions for their finals at the same time. So the girls D3 finals in the 100m will go, then D2 girls, then D1 girls, then D3 boys and so on. This is amazing to watch. You have a chance to come down to La Crosse. It s less than two hours away. You can watch Kenny go after the 400m state record. You can watch our ladies preform (we had a nice group of girls qualify). You can just take in the spectacle, because the WIAA State Track Meet is unlike anything you ve ever seen. Well, that s it. For those of you that are done, thanks for the efforts. Logan, Devin, Sam, Simon, Rocco, Dane and Ryan you guys are leading next year. Evan, thanks for an awesome career. Brian, here s to one last big event, and finishing on Friday and Saturday with huge PR.

MHS Track and Field HUDSON JV Invite Boys Comment Sheet. Stand Up

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