OFF AND RUNNING WITH THE SPARTANS
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OFF AND RUNNING WITH THE SPARTANS
On Thursday, March 28, 2024, some members of the Spartan Track & Field team traveled to Mitchell to participate in the DWU Indoor Meet in the Avera Sports and Wellness Complex. Competing with over 30 teams, across all three classes, the indoor meet was a new experience for us. Although times and distances recorded will not count toward state meet qualification, it was good experience and for some events, good practice.
The first field event for the 2024 season was boys’ shot put. Throwing the shot put 27’ 7” was Jaspur Gran. Wyatt Arhart threw 21’ 5” in shot put. Micah Orth threw 20’ 9” and Hayes Christensen threw 16’ 7”.
On the track, the first running event was the 4x800m relay and we had a boys’ team step to the starting line. Members running the relay were Karter Mebius, Richard Cardona, Kohen Mebius, and Sam Poncelow and they combined efforts on the 200m track to finish in 9th place, clocking 9:50.21.
Brock Krueger cleared 5’4” and 5’6” and missed his three attempts at 5’ 8”. Good thing Brock enters the mat from the right side as the jumpers on the left had to wait in between runners to cross the track for their approach, a small inconvenience, but definitely worth it to get some repetitions up and over the bar.
Branden Flowers ran the 60m hurdles in 12.67. Running the 60m dash were Holden Havlik, 7.78; Damien Knippling, 8.69; Branden Flowers, 8.86; Mitchell Orth, 10.97; Hayes Christensen, 10.98. The girls competing in the 60m dash were Brooke Mohling, 10.03; Swayzee Dunsmore, 10.14; and Tenley Olinger, 11.45.
Kohen Mebius was in the third heat of the mile run amongst 17 other runners. He ran the mile run in 6:07.15. There were two heats of the girls’ mile and Masynn Mebius was amongst the group of 20 runners in the second heat. Her time was 7:17.68.
Then we had twenty heats of the 400m dash for each of the boys and girls. To help speed things along, they did not allow the kids to use starting blocks, which made a huge difference in being able to have that many kids get a chance to compete. For the girls, Brooke Mohling ran 1:21.88 and Swayzee Dunsmore ran 1:27.40. In the boys’ heats, Karter Mebius ran 58.48; Richard Cardona ran 1:01.47; Branden Flowers ran 1:04.58; and Damien Knippling ran 1:09.60. Masynn Mebius ran her 800 in 3:17.25. Kohen Mebius and Sutten Jensen ran similar times in their 800 races from separate heats. Kohen ran 2:46.79 and Sutten’s time was 2:48.47.
It was the girls turn to toss the indoor shot put. Anna Arhart is working on a different throwing technique than how she threw last year. Anna’s best toss of the four attempts was 25’ 4”. Newcomers to the ring are Lily Roesler and Tenley Olinger who threw 15’ 0” and 16’ 1” respectively.
The sprinters sped around the 200m indoor track. Brooke Mohling’s time was 33.40. Swayzee Dunsmore ran 35.29 and Tenley Olinger ran 40.08. For the boys we had Holden Havlik, 25.61; Branden Flowers ran 28.59; Damien Knippling 30.25; and Mitchell Orth 37.26.
Masynn Mebius had fifteen laps around the track in her 3000m race, which she completed in 14:57.47.
After they got through almost 130 long jumpers for girls and boys, it was time for triple jump. Brock was in the third flight, and we were hoping he would get his jumps in before having to run his leg in the mile relay. In his first of four attempts he landed 37’ 3” and then he jumped 38’ 5”. On the third attempt he got 39’ 1” and his last was his personal best, jumping into the pit 39’ 11” and with that jump he landed in 3rd place. Then Karter Mebius, Richard Cardona, Brock, and Sam Poncelow moved the baton around the track in 3:50.96 to finish in 6th place overall.
Our first outdoor meet was scheduled to be on Tuesday, April 2, but Mother Nature has cancelled that plan with the much-needed moisture we have received and what is predicted this weekend. We hope our next meet will be Tuesday, April 9, in Wagner.