Girls Now in State Meet

The True Team track meets were not run like a normal meet this year due to Covid, but the concept remained the same – find the best team in each section and crown them champion. For the Southwest Christian / Edgerton girls’ team, that happened. After, five consecutive seasons of runner up, they took that final steps and won the team championship! I cannot say enough how impressive it is that the girls have been a top two team in the section for 6 straight years. That’s the result of so much hard work and effort in practice to be that caliber of a team. Congratulations to each and every girl on the team.

The boys squad had a super impressive meet as well as they took the runner-up spot in the final standings. They were fourth in the last season of track and moved up to second place this year. That’s a very good effort by the boys.

I stated that the true team meets were run different this year. Committee members did not want to bring 15 to 20 teams together from each section to compete together like normal years due to Covid concerns. It was decided to run the True Team meets virtually. Meaning, each team participating had to pick a meet the week of May 17 to 22 to use as their True Team meet. For us, that was the Red Rock Conference meet. Results from the top two finishers in each event from the Eagle squad were entered into the True Team meet for a computer generated meet with other teams competing. Results were tabulated and results were published just like a normal meet.

True Team is a unique meet where every participant receives points. The higher you finish, the more points for the team. For example, thirteen teams with two entries per team equals 26 athletes per event. First place receives 26 points, second 25 points on down to 26^th place gets 1 point. The relays are scored with more value. Thirteen teams, the winner gets 13 points X 3 = 39, 2^nd place gets 12 X 3 = 36, and so on. It’s designed to find the best true team effort that has depth in each event.

Both Eagle teams have had very strong seasons and knew they would be in the thick of things at the top of the standings again this year. They were guessing coming into the meet that the toughest competition would once again be Canby / Minneota and Redwood Valley.

For the girls championship, Canby / Minneota was indeed the team to beat. They are the two time defending section winner. We were runner-up to them both times. Prior to those two, the girls were runner up to Luverne three straight seasons. That is a very impressive run. This means the team has totally turned over it’s athletes to graduation and still maintained top of the section quality squads. The Eagle squad posted an incredible 34 season best performances at the meet to score 184 points and take the team championship. C / M had to settle for the runner-up position this year with 165. Third place went to Murray County Central with 140 and Redwood Valley followed with 131.

On the boys’ championship side of it, Redwood Valley team did win the team title with 178.5 points. The SWC/E squad claimed the runner-up spot with 163.5 points. They posted 25 season best performances. That is a great effort by the boys and shows the quality of their team climbing two position to second place. MCC was third with 154 and C / M followed with 119.

The SWC/E girls’ and the Redwood Valley boys’ teams will now represent Section 3A at the State True Team meet held the week of May 24 – 29. Like the section meet, the State meet will be held vitally with results coming from a meet held this week. We have a meet Tuesday in Luverne and Thursday in Slayton. With the competition level being higher and a better weather forecast, we will most likely use the Luverne meet for our State True Team competition.

Highlights of the meet for the girls included wins the 200 and long jump (Ellie Decker), 100 hurdles (Braelyn Kracht), pole vault (Kaitlyn Schuur) and relay wins in the 4X100, 4X200 and 4X800. On the boys’ side, wins came for Micah Schaap in long jump, triple jump and the 400, Caleb Raak in pole vault and the 4X400 relay.

The times, distances and heights are the same as the conference results but placements change as other teams were involved in the competition.

SWC/E girls’ events that placed in the top 5 were: 100 M dash: 2nd – Anna Suda (13.52), 3rd – Haley Wieck (13.63); 200 M dash: 1st – Ellie Decker (27.38); 400 M dash: 3rd – Kierra Binford (65.89); 800 M dash: 4th – Mikayla Johnson (2:42.41); 1600 M run: 4th – Savannah Schultz (5:50.36); 100 M hurdles: 1st – Braelyn Kracht (17.89), 2nd – Sydney Van Essen (18.63); 300 M hurdles: 4th – Kracht (54.70); 4X100 relay: 1st (Elizabeth Eisma, Wieck, Decker, Suda) – 53.81; 4X200 relay: 1st (Wieck, Binford, Suda, Decker) – 1:52.63; 4X400 relay: 2nd (Shaylee Van Essen, Johnson, Binford, Schultz) – 4:28.17; 4X800 relay: 1st (Lindsie Fick, Shay. Van Essen, Johnson, Schultz) – 10:28.90; Discus: 3rd – Reece Wassink (89-06), 4th – Madelyn Rozeboom (89-04); Shot Put: 3rd – Wassink (30-07.5), 5th – Rozeboom (29-10); Long Jump: 1st – Decker (15-06), 4th – Eisma (14-04); Triple Jump: 3rd – Shay. Van Essen (32-04.25), 5th – Kracht (31-04); Pole Vault: 1st – Kaitlyn Schuur (10-00), 2nd – Makenna Brands (7-6), High Jump: 5 way tie for 3rd – Schuur and Shay. Van Essen (4-06).

Boys’ events that finished in the top 5: 400 M dash: 1st – Micah Schaap (50.75), 3rd – Aidan Schaap (54.55); 800 M run: 2nd – Levi Van Dyken (2:08.19), 5th – Caleb Raak (2:17.65); 1600 M run: 5th – Jaden Barron (5:18.81); 3200 M run: 4th – Mason Hamm (11:31.34), 5th – Nilson Van Hulzen (12:09.91); 110 M hurdles: 4th – Jesse Tschetter (20.57); 4X100 relay: 4th (Tschetter, Keaton Arp, Jacob Raak, Carter Kracht) – 50.16; 4X200 relay: 3rd (Silas Van Essen, Gabe Vis, Arp, Jacob Masselink) – 1:57.71; 4X400 relay: 1st – (Barron, Van Dyken, A. Schaap, M. Schaap) – 3:36.77; 4X800 relay: 2nd (Arp, Barron, C. Raak, Van Dyken) – 9:12.16; Shot Put: 3rd – Jacob Fischer (38-05); Discus: 2nd – Fischer (125-04), 4th – Isaac Gunnink (94-05); Long Jump: 1st – M. Schaap (21-06*), 2nd – A. Schaap (19-03); High Jump: tie for 3rd – J. Raak and Grant Busker (5-06); Triple Jump: 1st – M. Schaap (43-03.5), 2nd – A. Schaap (38-03); Pole Vault: 1st – C. Raak (11-06), 4th – Tschetter (9-00).