By Kevin Cunningham
Sports Correspondent
On May 19, the Whitewater High School boys and girls track teams participated in the Blue Devil Frosh/Soph Invite and head coach John Houwers said for some, the meet served as a tune-up for Regionals. For others, it was their final meet of the season.
On the girls side, Nicole Tomomitsu was the top finisher, winning the 1600-meter run. Nine different girls finished the meet with personal-bests as well.
Maribel Pena and Grace Ejnik recorded personal-bests in the 200-meter run, Tomomitsu and Aspen Cook in the 1600, Emily Swanson both in the shot put and discus, Kylee Traylor in the discus, Miranda Reynolds in the high jump, Ali Ketterhagen in the long jump and Celine Zahn in the triple jump all had personal records.
“For the boys, personal-bests were set by Alvin Tillet and Alex Popke in the 100, Jose Villegas, Bennet Miles and Xander Jaeger in the 200m, Brandon Hageli in the 110 hurdles, Jacob Korf and Dalton Chenoweth in the in the 800m, with Daniel Soto just missing his, and Steven Witt in the 1600m,” Houwers said.
The teams then hosted Regionals on May 23 at Whitewater High School. Houwers said the goal of the night was to qualify for sectionals.
“The day started out great with the girls 4×800 relay of Allisan Barrett, Abby King, Lan Vo and Tomomitsu earning a fourth-place spot,” Houwers said. “Nicole ran an excellent final leg, passing a girl with about 30 meters left to take the fourth spot. She split with her fastest 800 time ever by about six seconds. The next race was the boys turn.
“The team of Timmy VanderPlyum, Connor Laue, Mike Mattingly and Matt Mattingly ran a season best of 8:18.97 to take third, less than a second away from winning the race. Their time is the fifth-fastest 4×800 relay run at WHS. Logan Rasmussen and Xhonatan Shahollari both added their names to the top-ten list by finishing 1-2 in the triple jump. Xhonatan went 44’ 1.5” in winning, while Logan went 43’ taking second.”
Barrett also earned a top-10 finish in Whippet history with her 12:06.17 in the 3200-meter run. Other qualifiers for the girls include Nicole Frison in the 100-meter hurdles, Morgan Wiedenhoeft in the 100-meter dash, Abby King in the 1600-meter run, Sarah Ziolkowski in the 3200-meter run, along with Barrett and Miranda Reynolds in the high jump, Keely Fiedler in the pole vault, the 4×800-meter relay and the 4×100-meter relay team of Wiedenhoeft, Ali Ketterhagen, Kelly O’Hara and Morgan Radaj.
For the boys, Shahollari also qualified in the high jump and long jump. Connor Rupke in the 100-meter dash, VanderPlyum in the 1600-meter run and Korf in the 3200-meter run as well as the 4×800-meter relay also qualified for sectionals.
