The Trucker girls track team took second place at Regionals on Monday, May 23, and the team will send 16 events to Sectionals.
Regional Results
100 Meter Dash: Karena Schroeder
200 Meter Dash: Angel Callaway
800 Meter Run: Nicole Hanson
800 Meter Run: Ana Huber
1600 Meter Run: Sara Messner
1600 Meter Run: Samantha Hohn
3200 Meter Run: Samantha Hohn
100 Meter Hurdles: Lauren Pugh
4×400 Relay: Nicole Hanson, Karena Schroeder, Holly Mayek, Ana Huber, alternates Lauren Pugh, Margot Vandeputte
4×800 Relay: Nicole Hanson, Ana Huber, Sara Messner, Samatha Hohn, alternates Holly Mayek, Kathryn Henschel
Pole Vault: Nicole Hanson
Long Jump: Karena Schroeder
Triple Jump: Karena Schroeder, Darcy Knaack
Shot Put: Bethanny Schmude, Markiesa Westphal
Conference Meet
Knowing that the team didn’t have the depth or star power that they did last year when the Clintonville girls team made a run at the conference championship, finishing second to winner Freedom, Clintonville knew that they still had some talent to expect to finish only one place worse (third) this year.
The chief spoiler for the Truckers was senior star horizontal jumper and sprinter Karena Schroeder. She qualified for the finals in both horizontal jumping events, long and triple, and coming into the finals she was seeded behind jumpers from both Little chute and Freedom in both events. In the finals however, Schroeder improved her efforts jumping past a Freedom and Little Chute jumpers, causing their respective coaching staffs to keep a very close eye on the event. Schroeder was not able to jump past Little Chute’s Taylor Rosenfeldt, who won both events as well as MVP field event athlete honors for the meet; but she had done just enough to help Little Chute gain on its lead over defending conference champion Freedom.
“Karena finally hit her goal of 16 feet in the long jump today and in doing so earned second team all-conference honors. Sixteen feet has eluded her for her entire career and it is great to see a hardworking dedicated senior cap of her conference career in style,” Reese said.
Clintonville’s pleasant surprises of the night were the combination of high jumper Carmen Johnson and high hurdler Lauren Pugh. Johnson, a sophomore, shocked everyone when she finished second in the event, earning second team all-conference.
“Pugh took third place in the high hurdles. She had been stubbornly frustrated with her hurdling performances this season. Weather had canceled so many meets and interfered with so many practices, costing our hurdlers more than anyone. She has been downright angry at herself, one day showing up to practice with skate boarding pads on her knees, elbows, and wrists. She was going to improve her hurdling times no matter how much pain it caused,” Reese said.
Clintonville finished a heartbreaking 0.17 points away from earning a third place tie with Xavier in the team score. Little Chute beat defending champion Freedom for first place honors. “We expected third, and I honestly believe we are the third best girls team in the conference, although the history books will never state that,” Reese said. “Xavier has a very small team-not enough kids to have any depth at all. We don’t have the depth of the big dogs, but certainly more than Xavier. They have a few girls that are state bound in events. We only needed them to finish one place lower in one event, or for us to finish one place higher in one event and we would have had them beat. I hate to make excuses, but there were a few opportunities missed. We had a girl wearing jewelry in one relay that got us disqualified. Inexusable. We had a girl in another relay who thought she heard a false start double gun instead of taking off running with the rest of the field. She stood up and looked at the ref giving every other relay team a large head start before she took off running. Mistakes happen and those miscues were probably offset by a few surprise finishes. One spot that really upsets me was completely avoidable. In relays we list six athletes-four to run and two to serve as alternates in case of emergency. I can only do so much as a coach. I sign kids up to the best of my knowledge to not only do what is best for their individual success but to also help the team as much as possible-it is a delicate balance between the two. After that, you cheer them on and hope that perform to the best ability. But the kids need to show up to their events. The school district allows parents to sign out their children and drive them home instead of having the kids ride the bus home. Track meets go quite late and kids have their studies to worry about. Parents signing out kids is quite common. I am busy all track meet, and when a parent sees me, they ask to sign the board, so they don’t have to find me later. I operate under the assumption that they will stay for their events and then go home after cheering on their teammates after the meet. Well, at the conference championships, three of the four relay members for the 4×400 relay, the nights last event, signed out and left before the event! They didn’t show up to the starting line to run the race.”
Clintonville girls did have one first team all conference honoree. The 4×800 relay team of Samantha Hohn, Nicole Hanson, Sara Messner and Ana Huber, broke a meet record while taking first in the event by considerable distance. Joining Carmen Johnson (high jump) and Karena Schroeder (long jump) as 2nd team all-conference was Nicole Hanson, defending conference champion, in the pole vault event. Clintonville’s talented shot put tandem of Bethany Schmude and Markiesa Westphal ended up taking second and third place respectively in the event to both earn all conference honors. Nicole Hanson in the 800 meter run joined Lauren Pugh in the 100 hurdles as Clintonville’s other third team all-conference honorees.
Conference Meet Results
100m: Karena Schroeder, 5th; 13.25
400m: Ana Huber, 7th; 1:06.61
800m: Nicole Hanson, 3rd; 2:25.65; Ana Huber, 8th; 2:41.15
1,600m: Sam Hohn, 6th; 5:44.02; Sara Messner, 7th; 5:44.08
3,200m: Sam Hohn, 6th; 12:32.18; Sara Messner, 8th; 12:59.56
100m hurdles: Lauren Pugh, 3rd; 17.54; Erin Peeters, 5th; 17.97
300m hurdles: Lauren Pugh, 8th
4x100m relay: Angel Calloway, Holly Mayek, Kaitlyn Leibzeit, Ali Moon; 8th; 56.89
4x200m relay: Angel Calloway, Brittany Hoffman, Holly Mayek, Karena Schroeder; 6th; 2:01.07
4x800m relay: Nicole Hanson, Ana Huber, Lin Weng, Kathryn Henschel; 1st; 9:59.20
Shot put: Bethany Schmude, 2nd; 33’11”; Markiesa Westphal, 3rd; 32’10.25″
High jump: Carmen Johnson, 2nd; 4’8″; Erin Peeters, 8th; 4’6″
Pole vault: Nicole Hanson, 2nd; 9′; Ali Moon, 4th; 7’6″; Lauren Pugh, 6th; 7′
Long jump: Karena Schroeder, 2nd; 16’1.75″
Triple jump: Karena Schroeder, 6th; 31’5″