St. Croix Central track team uses home meet to prepare for WIAA tournaments

• Lauren Moll

Freshman Lauren Moll has become the best hope in the middle distances for the St. Croix Central girls track team this season.

Talk about it

When the St. Croix Central track team hosted its final meet before the tournament schedule begins, it wasn’t with an eye toward the Dunn-St. Croix Conference Meet.

Instead, the home meet last Tuesday was utilized as a final chance to construct the Panthers’ WIAA tournament lineup. The Panthers will be the host school for the WIAA Division 2 regional meet next Monday.

One question that’s been on the back burner all season that was addressed Tuesday was finding a fourth member for the Panther boys’ 3200 meter relay. Steve Brunshidle, Alex Halvorson and Carl Moll return from the relay team that ran at state last year. In Tuesday’s meet, Aaron Delander was given his chance to lock up the fourth spot in the relay. Delander showed excellent potential, bringing the team’s time down to 8:29. Coach Amanda Webb said that with concentrated work, she thinks that time can come down considerably before Monday’s regional meet.

Otherwise, the coaches gave most of the athletes one or two events to concentrate on. The coaches gave many of the younger athletes multiple spots in the lineup, knowing that the younger Panthers might not be in the lineup for this week’s Dunn-St. Croix Conference meet or the upcoming WIAA tournaments.

With teams like Osceola competing in the meet, the Panthers didn’t get many first place finishes. Senior Lauden Wood produced two of them, taking the top spot in the discus throw and shot put. In addition to winning the 3200 relay, the boys were also champions in the 800 relay.

The girls had a number of second place finishes. They were led by sophomore Kayla Pabst, who was second in the discus and shot put. Jessie Johnson ran second in the 100 hurdles and Laura DeSmith matched that finish in the triple jump. The girls 800 relay team also placed second.

Second place finishes for the boys included the 400 relay team and senior D.J. Haas in the pole vault.

Osceola won both halves of Tuesday’s meet. The Panther boys placed third among the seven teams in the meet while the girls placed fifth.

The Panthers will get to compete at home one more time this season. Central has been chosen to host the Division 2 regional meet, which will be held next Monday. The meet begins at 4 p.m.

Tags: sports, panthers, track, prep