Warriors Open Track Season in Missouri
Runners Ready to Start the 5000-meter Race
By: Cassidy Warson
In Waldorf’s outdoor track season opener, the Warriors make a trip down to St. Louis, Missouri as the team competes in two different meets.
On Friday night, March 31, 2017 the Warriors men and women’s distance team went to work as the 5000-meter and 10,000-meter were being run at the Washington Invitational at Washington University. In the men’s 5000-meter, senior Ovan Garcia raced to a time of 17:07 while sophomore Jesse Vega wasn’t too far behind coming in with a time of 17:13. Also running the 5000-meter race, senior Adam Brinkman came through the line at a time of 19:17 followed by sophomore Alden Zeller with a 20:19 race time.
On the women’s side, junior Bailey Matthaidess made her time of 21:40 the school record in the 5,000-meter run. Junior Katelynn Ramirez ran her first outdoor 5000-meter finishing with a time of 25:35.
Later after both men and women’s 5000-meter races, the men’s 10,000-meter featured seniors Aaron Ward and Nathan Meiners. Meiners raced across the finish with a time of 33:21, while Ward came across the line with a time of 33:11, breaking the previous North Star Athletic Association 10,000-meter record that was made by Meiners, a season ago at the same meet.
“I am really pleased with how the 5000-meter and 10,000-meter races went. All athletes showed great poise and ran very well. Looking to the meets in the future I believe we have a great chance to do something special this year,” said Waldorf interim assistant coach Josh Olinger.
The next day, Saturday April 1, the rest of the Warriors got their chance to race in their first meet as the team traveled not too far to St. Charles to the John Creer Invitational. This meet would conclude in four top five finishes for the men, that would get the Warriors enough points to place a tenth overall out of twenty-two teams with 22.25 points.
Redshirt freshman, Cameron Newsome, started the team off placing second in the high jump.
Sophomore Justin Jacobi competed hard to get a fourth place finish of 15.79 in the 110-meter hurdles. Jacobi also fought for fifth place in the 400-meter hurdles improving his ending time of 57 seconds by .5 seconds.
Later, Mark Ahlers put a strong performance together, crushing his previous school record of 1:56 in the 800-meter run. In this competitive race, Ahlers snapped his previous record by 4.66 seconds, as he captured an impressive fourth place finish.
“Mark gave a great effort in the 800, coming from behind to run a PR,” Waldorf interim head coach Kaylen White said.
On the women’s side, they end the day with four top-10 finishes.
In the javelin throw, junior Peyton Russell took second with a distance of 37.56 meters.
Redshirt freshman Markai Wotoe leapt to a new outdoor school record of 17 feet, 2.25 inches in the long jump, taking sixth place. Wotoe also took a tenth place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1 minute, 1 second, breaking the previous outdoor school record by an impressive time of 5.12 seconds.
The 4×100-meter relay team of freshman Kaila Jackson, junior Danielle Holt, sophomore Asia Bell and Wotoe fought for a finish of ninth place with a time of 53 seconds, which sets a new outdoor school record.
The women would end the day with an overall fourteenth place finish with eleven points.
For both teams, the meet was cut short when the sun set. Throws got pushed back by forty-minutes, resulting in some athletes not having the chance to perform in some events for the opening part of the season.
In conclusion to the end of the day, White said, “Overall it was a great trip. It’s nice to get to take the team on a trip like this so we can get a good team bonding experience in addition to a good opportunity to compete. Everybody really came with their game faces and I’m really pleased with how we did.”
Waldorf has a week off, but will return to competing again on April 12 and April 13 for a two-day Red Raider Open, taking place in Orange City, Iowa at 1 p.m.