BOYS TRACK & FIELD
By ERIC INGLES
eingles@shawmedia.com The Erie-Prophetstown and Morrison boys track teams will both be busy next week at the Class 1A state championships in Charleston. The host Panthers won four events at Friday’s sectional meet, with the Mustangs winning three and putting in three other state-qualifying performances. Sherrard wound up edging Riverdale for the team sectional title with 87 points; the Rams had 83. Erie-Prophetstown was third with 63. Morrison finished fourth with 58. Fulton took eighth as a team with 21 points, Newman was ninth with 19, Bureau Valley was 11th with 16, West Carroll tied for 12th with 14, Amboy-LaMoille was 14th with 11, and Milledgeville-Eastland took 15th with four points. Morrison had a 1-2 finish in the 400, with Alex Anderson taking first in 51.65 seconds and teammate Justice Brainerd right behind him. “I was hoping to be first in the [first] 200 and hopefully just don’t see anyone,” Anderson said. “Since I was on the outside lane of Justice, I was just hoping I didn’t see him the whole race. That usually means I get first.” Brainerd was never far behind him, finishing in 51.70. “All we do is just try to push ourselves each and every race we do,” Brainerd said. “Try to push each other in practices. We just try to force the best out of each other.” Anderson is also headed to state in the 100, where he took third in a state-qualifying time of 11.30 seconds. “It felt great,” Anderson said. “I was hoping to get first, but that didn’t happen, but I still qualified, so that’s awesome.” The Mustangs capped off the night with a dominant 4x400 relay. Brainerd, running the first leg, built a sizable early lead and his colleagues Brady Wolf, Skylar Drolema and Anderson never let up, finishing in 3:30.16 to beat second-place Sherrard by nearly four seconds. Morrison also has the sectional high jump champion in Drolema, who, rested and ready following a trip to Key West, cleared 6 feet, 1 inch. He tried 6-3, going up too close to the bar and knocking it off with his first and third attempts, and nicking it with his finger on the second. “High jump, I wasn’t expecting to do that because I was on vacation, but I got one practice in before this and it went good,” Drolema said. Wolf took second in the 300 hurdles in 43.40 seconds. Erie-Prophetstown has a pole vault champion in Parker Holdorf, who cleared 3.90 meters. Teammate Lucas Dreisbach cleared 3.1 meters to take third, but missed out on a spot at state. The Panthers also have a long jump champion in Braxton Froeliger, who went 6.18 meters. “I was making sure I was on my board,” Froeliger said. “Coach was helping me. My first jump was a little behind, so he had me move up. I just really built up my speed on that last jump, which was my best jump, and I was able to edge out second place.” Froeliger then teamed up with Michael Carlson, Cameron Stout and Alex Gustaf to win the 4x100 in dominating fashion, finishing in 44.72. Riverdale took second in 45.17.
“It was great. We got all our handoffs pretty good,” Gustaf said. “We came out with a season PR, and now we’re going to state. “Just run your own race. We all ran our own race. We all stayed relaxed, stayed smooth, and we got the job done.” Fulton was disqualified from the 4x100 on a false start, but rebounded with a strong 4x200. Erie-Prophetstown had gotten off to a good start and seemed to be repeating its wide victory from the 4x100, but Fulton’s Josh Vanderploeg was able to close much of the gap with the anchor leg. He, Carson Wherry, Daken Pessman and Kyler Pessman took second in 1:34.22. “It felt good,” Vanderploeg said. “We kind of got off to a slow start. I wasn’t really worried because I knew we’d come back because our third and fourth legs are really good.” Erie-Prophetstown’s 4x200 relay of Froeliger, Stout, Gustaf and Ben Lantz won in 1:33.83. The Panthers nearly had a third relay through to state, but Carlson, Stout, Lantz and Gustaf took third in the 4x400, finishing 0.65 seconds behind Sherrard. Vanderploeg also is through to state with a second-place run in the 200.
TOP: Erie’s Alex Gustaf celebrates after crossing the finish line in the 4x100. ABOVE LEFT: Morrison’s Skylar Drolema can’t quite clear 6’3 but is well on his way to qualifying for the state tournament. ABOVE: Erie’s Braxton Froeliger lands his long jump Friday in Erie. Froeliger qualified for state. LEFT: Morrison teammates Alex Anderson (right) and Justice Brainerd head for the finish in the 100 dash. Photos by Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@ shawmedia.com
WHITESIDE NEWS Shaw Media / ShawLocal.com • Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Mustangs, Panthers sending large group to state
11
