The Hastings Raiders sent 12 competitors plus a few reserves to the State Track Meet held at St. Michael/Albertville High School last week. Preliminaries took place Thursday, which turned out to be a very cold and windy day. The temperature did not top 62 degrees, and winds were consistently 17-20 mph with gusts up to 30.
The weather is an important factor at track events, especially wind and that forced both the pole jump and high jump indoors. The field events rotated with the girls doing High Jump, Long Jump and Discus on Thursday, while the boys did pole vault, triple jump and shot put. Saturday, the events flipped.
Sophomore Samira Thompson, who qualified for the high jump with a jump of five feet two inches was only able to clear five feet for this meet which put her in 18th place. The winner cleared was one of five girls to clear five feet four inches. The indoor surface seemed to be messing with all of the jumpers due to the stickier nature of the floors versus the outdoor track material.
Lauren Whitfield qualified for both discus and shot put. On Thursday for discus, Whitfield was up against some stiff competition, but she held her own finishing third with a throw of 126-07. The winner was a Forest Lake sophomore, Alexi Fahey. Fahey had several impressive throws with the winning distance of 154-11. That throw moved Fahey into the 31st ranked discus thrower in the nation.
For the shot put, Whitfield finished 14th overall with a distance of 36-09.25. First place was won by a junior from Rogers, Anya Schmidt. Schmidt’s distance of 43-11.75 moved her into the 84th best spot in the nation.
Finishing off the field events for Hastings was junior Carlee Kordosky. Kordosky placed 12th in triple jump with a distance of 35-04.25. Shiaflyn Cooper, a freshman from Elk River won the triple jump with a distance of 37-06.00.
Kordosky ran the 100 Hurdles, 300 hurdles and was in the 4x400 relay. In the 100 hurdles she won her preliminary heat and then placed second in the finals with a time of 14.55 behind senior Claire Kohler from Minnetonka’s 13.86. For the 300 hurdles, she just missed the finals cut with a time of 48.03.
Sophomore Ellie Magnus qualified for the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.42. In the finals she ran a 12.31 placing ninth overall. Senior Addyson White from Prior Lake won the event with an 11.74. In the 200-meter dash, she missed the cut by .20 seconds with a time of 25.73 seconds.
Sophomore Olyvia Erickson ran the 400 and finished 10th overall in the prelims with a time of 59.02, missing the cut by .06. Emma Kvant of STMA won with a 55.50.
Peyton Lee-Dean injured his hamstring at the Section 3AAAA meet and despite his best efforts to rest and heal in less than a week, he was not able to participate in the 400-meter dash and as part of the boys 4x200 relay.
Jared Hanson finished 12th in the prelims for the 300 hurdles, missing the qualifying time by a little more than half of a second.
Aiden Stoltz finished 10th overall in the preliminaries for the 800 meter run with a time of 1:57.83, missing the cut for the finals by .24 seconds.
The boys 4x200 relay of Matthew Jelks, Zach Shatek, Gunnar Hanstad and Lane Hoffman finished 14th overall with a time of 1:30.21. Owatonna took home the first-place spot with a time of 1:27.72.
The girls 4x400 relay of Ava Klug, Ellie Magnus, Carlee Kordosky and Olyvia Erickson placed 13th overall with a time of 4:07.08. Prior Lake took home first place with a time of 3:55.70.