HHS sending six track athletes to state meet

After suffering a dismal last-place finish at the Mississippi Valley Conference meet last week, the Highland Bulldogs boys track team redeemed themselves with a stellar showing at the Lincoln 2A Sectional on Friday, qualifying two individuals and a relay to the IHSA state finals and narrowly missing state qualification in two more events.

MVC conference foe Triad captured the sectional team title with 87 points followed by Springfield Lanphier with 83, Breese Central 50, Springfield Southeast 46, Rochester 45 and Highland 40.5 to round out out the top six teams in the field of 17.

Leading the way for the Bulldogs was senior Seby Wolf, who qualified in the pole vault by placing third with a 13-foot vault that met the IHSA qualifying standard. In the process, Wolf established a new school record in the event, eclipsing the old mark of 12 feet, 9 inches set by Zach Bramstedt five years ago.

"Seby had a great day," HHS coach Bob Vance said. "He hurt his shoulder early in the season, so we shut him down in the vault until about three weeks ago. He came back with a strong focus and has increased his previous best by a foot and a half. A lot of the credit goes to our vault coach Ted Cipicchio who's been working with Seby and our other vaulters and convinced us that he needed a couple of new poles if he wanted to go to state."

It wasn't easy for Wolf who had several misses during the competition and three times he made a height on his final attempt.

"One time he was way over and kicked the bar off with his foot and another time he didn't push his pole away and the bar fell," Vance said. "He was nearly out on his opening height of 11-6, but he was determined to make it to state."

It's the second trip to state for Wolf in the pole vault after qualifying last year as well.

Joining Wolf at the state finals this Friday and Saturday at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston will be sectional champions sophomore Nick Hanratty in the 3200 and the 4 x 100 relay team of Mason Geiger, Wolf, Chase DeProw, and Noah Schmitt. Just missing were the same relay foursome in the 4 x 200 relay and sophomore Brylee Portell in the 300 intermediate hurdles.

The 4 x 100 relay team had its best time of the year, narrowly edging Triad. Geiger gave the Bulldogs a strong leadoff leg and Wolf followed with another great effort, but Triad still had a slight advantage. DeProw, despite a slight stumble on the exchange gave Highland the lead going into the final Leg and Schmitt held off the Triad anchor and had a great lean at the finish for a winning time of 43.55 to the Knight's 43.57. Both teams advanced to the state finals.

"These boys suffered a lot of adversity this year with injuries to Chase and Ivan Orozco," Vance said. "We've been working on fine-tuning the handoffs and for the most part they were pretty smooth, but I think the team would tell you that they could still be better.

"We lost Ivan three weeks ago to a nasty hamstring tear and Chase has been able to overcome his injuries at just the right time. These guys have been chasing the school record (42.84) all year and now they have another chance or two to get it."

Geiger, Wolf and DeProw were on the state qualifying relay team last year, while Schmitt was the alternate.

"I did not want to be the reason we didn't make it to state," Schmitt said. "I gave it everything I had and it was just enough."

Despite having their best effort of the year by nearly two seconds (1:32.66), the 4 x 200 relay team finished third behind Central (1:31.25) and Triad (1:32.37) and failed to qualify.

Hanratty won the 3200, holding off two runners who were charging hard at the finish of the grueling eight-lap race. The Bulldog sophomore who was one of the few highlights at the conference meet, followed up his second-place MVC finish with a winning time of 10:19.22.

"Nick ran a smart race," Vance said. "Nobody wanted to take the lead so he took it and pushed the pace throughout. We knew it wouldn't be easy and we weren't sure how strong of a kick some of the other runners had. It turned out that Nick's last lap was his best and was enough to hold on for the win."

Portell, who began running the 300 hurdles late in his freshman season, finished off his best race of the year with personal best of 43.81. The effort was good for third place only .19 seconds behind second place finisher Thomas Rexing of Jerseyville.

"Brylee clipped a hurdle early in the race and that caused him to adjust his steps for the next hurdle and that was probably the difference," Vance said. "He was charging hard at the end, but just ran out of time. He's come a long way in the event and has two more years to improve his time. He has big goals and as a coach you have to love that."

Portell ran the third leg of the 4 x 800 relay, which placed sixth in a season best 8:44.87 Freshmen Josh Loeh (2:06.8) and Easton Rosen (2:09.1), along with Portell (2:10.6), had their best splits of the season. Hanratty ran the anchor leg with instructions to run fast enough to earn the unit sectional medals.

"We knew that Nick had a good shot to advance in the 3200 which is two events after the relay so we told him if we were in a qualifying position to go for it in the relay. Otherwise, just use the relay as a warm-up," Vance said. "Despite the other guys great efforts, we were quite a ways back when Nick got the baton. He did just enough to keep us in the medals. That's a nice reward for the hard work those guys have put in. We will see a lot of good things from that group over the next few years."

The Bulldogs other points came from freshman pole vaulter Bryce Kirsch, who tied for fifth equaling his best effort of the season at 11- 6.

"Bryce just missed at 12 feet and is becoming a real student of the event," Vance said. "It's very possible that the pole vault record could go down again in the next couple of years."

Also competing at the sectional meet for Highland were senior Gabe Sherrill in the 3200, and sophomores Brendan Sands in the triple jump and Ethan Leftwich in the 100 and 200.

This story was originally published May 21, 2018 at 4:40 PM with the headline "HHS sending six track athletes to state meet."