Track teams bring home conference championships
By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
History was made in East Troy Saturday.
For just the second time ever, both the boys and girls track teams came away with overall Rock Valley Conference championships.
And they did it in completely different fashions – one dominating effort, and another that came down to the wire.
The East Troy boys rolled to the title with 142.5 points, well ahead of Whitewater’s 120 and McFarland’s 107.
Rounding out the team scores on the boys’ side were Jefferson with 71, Brodhead-Juda with 53, Turner with 48, Edgerton with 43, Evansville with 42, Big Foot with 31, Clinton with 29.5, Parkview with nine and Palmyra-Eagle with six.
The girls’ title was a much tighter affair.
East Troy posted 114 points to edge Jefferson’s 113.5 and McFarland’s 110. Finishing behind those three were Whitewater with 66.5, Brodhead-Juda with 54, Turner with 53, Big Foot with 48, Edgerton with 47, Clinton with 40, Evansville with 26, Parkview with 25 and Palmyra-Eagle with five.
East Troy coach Josh Herrell was proud of both teams.
“We had a talk the day before about how close things were going to be,” he said. “I explained to them that they needed to remain focused in everything we do.
“If something doesn’t go as planned, we need that athlete to focus on his or hers next race. Teammates really focused on trying to pick each other up. I am so proud of how they responded. No one would have thought we would be the champions at the end of the season.”
Senior Charlie Kutschenreuter, who was named the running events most valuable, brought home three conference titles.
Kutschenreuter won the 100 (11.46), the 200 (22.85) and the 400 (50.35).
“All in all, with trials, Charlie had to run five races, and he won every single one of them against outstanding competition,” Herrell said.
Also capturing conference crowns were Truman Kent in the 110-hurdles (15.95) and Miles Kilpin in the discus (169-7).
Kilpin’s toss ranks him second in the state in Division 2.
Other top-five efforts were turned in by Nathan Nguyen, second in the 200 (23.0), third in the 100 (11.61) and third in the 400 (51.54); Billy Dominski, second in the 110-hurdles (16.23); Evan Harding, third in the 1,600 (4:40.34) and fifth in the 3,200 (10:46.22); Brody Kazik, third in the 3,200 (10:18.69, lifetime best by 15 seconds) and fifth in the 1,600 (4:43.94); Kilpin, fourth in the shot put (50-3); Kent, fourth in the 300-hurdles (43.83); the 3,200-meter relay team, fourth (8:34.56); Anthony Leahy, fourth in the high jump (5-10); Jake Wendt, fourth in the discus (155-8) and fifth in the shot put (47-4); and the 1,600-meter team, fifth (3:40.53).
Herrell said he didn’t expect the one-two punch of Kent and Dominski to dominate the 110-high hurdle event.
“This was unexpected and happened at the beginning of the meet, and the other boys just fed off their success,” he said.
“(Kent and Dominski) have been coming up to hurdle on Sundays some weeks just to put them in position to pull this off. Besides being the head coach, I am also the hurdle coach (and) these boys have listened to what I have told them all year and made the corrections they needed to become dominant hurdlers.”
