Friday, June 05, 2015

Class AA Records Fall on Day 1, Session 1 of the MSHSL Track Championships

The MSHSL Outdoor Track Championships got off to record setting start on Friday at Hamline's Klas Field. It was a day for field events with eight contested and one All-Time record.  Eden Prairie's Benjamin Ose cleared 15'8" to improve Buffalo HS grad Mitch Valli's mark by half an inch.
Triple jump wionner Sammie Houston(left) and pole vault champ
Benjamin Ose(right) Photo by Gene Niemi

On the track Lakeville South's girl's 4 by 400 relay set a new All-Time State Meet record of 3:51.24..Thief River Falls' Meleah Biermaier ran 42.87 in the 300 hurdles, a new girl's Class AA mark.  Eagan's 4 by 100 relay finished in 41.70 to eclipse Eastview's All-Time meet record of 41.82.   Hopkins' Joe Klecker missed the 3200 record of Richfield grad Obsa Ali by less than a second in 8:57.76.  Ali's All-Time MSHSL mark is 8:57.07.

Klecker punched the sky as he crossed the finish line.  He said afterwards that he "just didn't have it" over the last few laps to match his earlier season 8:50 and 8:54 times.  Both Klecker and 3200 girl's winner Bethany Hasz led from the start and were never seriously challenged.  Wayzata's Jaret Carpenter and Connor Olson were briefly in single file right behind Klecker, but by the time Klecker hit the 1600 mark in around 4:25 a gap had opened that never closed.
Joe Klecker and the chase pack. Photo
by Gene Niemi

The battle in the girl's race was for second, third, and fourth as Hasz soloed to a season's best time of 10:26.40.  She said her only strategy going in was to "run my own race,"which was good for a 14 second win over runner-up Rachel King of St. Michael-Albertville, who was timed in 10:40.95. Hasz alone in front was an unusual sight, as she is usually accompanied by her twin sister Megan.

Megan has a stress reaction in her leg that sidelined her for the State Meet.  This year has been unusual in that the twins scratched from May's Hamline elite meet because both were dealing with Achilles tendon problems.  They recovered from that setback, but then Megan was hit with the stress reaction, which can be a precursor to a stress fracture, around the time of their conference meet.

Megan sat out that event, but ran sectionals just to qualify for State.  She ran just under 11 minutes there and the decision was made to pass up the State meet as well, rather than risk the injury getting any worse.  The Hasz twins are juniors, so there's always next year.  Injuries also changed the boy's field, as defending champion Eli Krahn of Stillwater was also felled by a stress reaction and Chaska's Joey Duerr did not compete because of the bane of his high school years, persistent Achilles problems,

Duerr, who is going to the University of Minnesota in the Fall said that he'd considered surgery on the tendon, but passed on that and hopes to recover and rid himself of his Achilles problems during college.


2 comments:

Lorisue5 said...

Forgot to mention LSHS girls' 4x400 team broke the state record in a time of 3:51.24

jdf said...

Thanks. Will correct that oversight.