Ripon Tiger track and field teams win 11 events, dominate relays at Berlin Quad (PHOTOS)

After two limited-entry indoor competitions to start the season, the Ripon High School track and field teams were able to get all of their athletes into events, many of which were in three or four, last week Tuesday at the Berlin Quadrangular.

And Ripon head coach Chris Gatzke liked what he saw.

The Tigers’ boys’ and girls’ teams combined to win 11 events, record 26 top-four finishes and achieve 63 personal-record (PR) outdoor performances en route to finishing second and third out of four schools, respectively.

Winneconne won the boys’ competition with 122.5 points and was followed by Ripon (51.5), Berlin (49) and Waupun (44). Berlin came out on top for the girls with 90 points, ahead of Winneconne (73), Ripon (62) and Waupun (43).

“It was awesome,” Chris Gatzke said of the Tigers’ first outdoor meet of the season. “To have that many PRs was phenomenal. We saw some really exciting things. We were able to put some additional relay teams together and those relay teams had some surprises. It was great to have everybody be able to compete in multiple events.”

An area the Tigers had plenty of success at the Berlin Quadrangular was in relays. They won both the boys’ and the girls’ 4x200, 4x400, 4x800-meter relays, while also recording a third-place finish in the boys 4x100 relay. The only relay the Tigers didn’t score in at the quadrangular (top-four finish) was the girls’ 4x100 due to a disqualification.

Gatzke noted that outside of maybe the 4x800 relay, the teams featured different combinations of members from what was run indoors. He credited that to Ripon’s depth, saying the challenge is figuring out who to run where and when.

Making up winning relay teams on the boys’ side were Austin Brown, Keagen Buettner, Zach Kelm, Keaton Kuncl in the 4x200; Raymond Ellis, Vicente Beltran, Cyan Volkmann and Jason Vega in the 4x400; and Ellis, Beltran, Volkmann and Aidan Ruedinger in the 4x800. The 4x100 team of Brandyn Beahm, Brown, Harrison Julian and Colin Rieder placed third.

Winning relays for the girls were Victoria Rivera, Reese Brooks, Emma Resop and Adalin Nodolf in the 4x200; Nodolf, Karsyn Bauman, Resop, Rivera in the 4x400; and Libby Gatzke, Amelia Long, Adeline Baird and Leah Page in the 4x800.

Not only did the Ripon boys’ and girls’ teams combine to win six of the eight relays, they each recorded two of the four scoring positions in the 4x400 relay. In addition to winning the event, the boys had an entry of Buettner, Julian, Kyler Rieder and Joel Nieves finish second and the girls had a team of Baird, Libby Gatzke, Long and Page finish third.

“We put together what I would call a distance 4x400 and a sprint 4x400,” Chris Gatzke said. “... We didn’t even plan for it to be that way. We were just trying to get people in and do a good workout, create some competition amongst our team and get more people involved and be cheering, and all of those things happened. … Now, what we need to do is review those [teams] and go back and say, ‘Hey, we probably need to take this person from this relay, these two people from this relay and this person that didn’t even run.’ And that is probably going to be our next iteration of the 4x400.”

Another event in which the Tigers shined at the quadrangular was the pole vault. Beahm won the boys’ competition with a high school PR height of 13 feet, 3 inches, while Clare Walker took home first for the girls with a PR of 9-0.

Ripon also had six other vaulters make height, with four recording PRs. Chris Gatzke noted that Colin Rieder and Julian, who finished fifth and seventh, respectively with PRs of 9-6, could have cleared 10 feet as they were above the bar by 3 or 4 feet, but knocked it off with their feet on the way down. Kuncl (10th, 7-6) and Peter Vandervelde (11th, PR 7-0) also made height for the boys, while Madelynn Marx (fifth, PR 7-6) and Nodolf (sixth, 6-6) made height for the girls.

Chris Gatzke noted that the pole vault is going to cause a “really neat problem” as there are several vaulters who could place, and that in limited-entry meets the Tigers will need to make sure they use them when they can score points.

Also winning events for Ripon last week Tuesday were Aidan Ruedinger in the 3,200 run (11 minutes, 19.87 seconds), Leah Page in the 800 run (2:48.71) and Resop in the high jump (4-8). Chris Gatzke said Ruedinger and Resop have been consistent, but that the next step is getting them under 11 minutes and above 4-10, respectively, in their events.

Ruedinger didn’t have some of the competition Chris Gatzke was hoping that he would, which affected his time.

Page normally competes in the 1,600 run, but was moved to the 800 run for the quadrangular along with Amelia Long and led from start to finish. Long also recorded a strong race as the junior placed second with a time of 2:48.76.

Chris Gatzke noted that both Page and Long had strong finishes to their races, which was a trend he noticed with a lot of Ripon’s athletes in the 400, 800, 1,600 and 3,200 runs.

“Almost all of those runners found their kick; they were able to pick up the pace and really sprint in hard at the finish, which made a big difference in a lot of the times and the places,” the Ripon head coach said.

Other athletes to record top-four finishes for the Tigers include Bauman in the 100 dash (third, PR 13.58) and 400 dash (second, PR 1:06.19), Nodolf in the 200 dash (third, 29.18), Ashley Bradley in the 400 dash (third, 1:08.64), Brooks in the 300 hurdles (third, PR 55.02), Schoelzel in the 110 hurdles (fourth, PR 20.88) and 300 hurdles (third, 47.99), Kuncl in the 300 hurdles (fourth, PR 47.95) and triple jump (second, PR 36-8), Hayden Durovy-Meeker in the discuss (fourth, 89-4) and Brown in the high jump (second, PR 5-6).

Up next

Ripon will take part in another quadrangular Tuesday at Kettle Moraine Lutheran, before traveling Friday to Kewaskum for its first outdoor invitational of the season. The competition at the quadrangular once again will feature Waupun and Winneconne, with Kettle Moraine Lutheran taking the place of Berlin as the other school in attendance.

“What we’re really excited about is using this last quad and the upcoming quad to solidify some of our entries,” Chris Gatzke said. “It will be the first invite where we get to put people in the events that we’re going to try to do [to put] our best team foot forward and see how that works and see what we can do.”

He added the Tigers are looking forward to competing against schools not in their conference as they have not been able to do that outside of their first indoor meet of the season, which included a lot of larger schools.

“It’s going to be really neat to get to an invite and run against others and see how we stack up throughout the state rather than just with our conference,” Chris Gatzke said.

The Kewaskum invitational will get underway at 4 p.m.