Joe Drennan
Sports EditorThe Suburban East Conference meet at White Bear Lake may not have seen a Forest Lake High School team finish in first place, but there were plenty of individual performances that turned heads.
On the boys side, the team finished in last place with 41 team points. Roseville won the meet with 151.5 points. Stillwater placed second with 136 points and Mounds View third with 107 points. On the girls side, Forest Lake managed to finish in sixth place with 72.5 points. Stillwater finished first with 165 points followed by Mounds View with 136.5 points and Woodbury who had 120 points.
ìIt wasnít that we had a poor meet,î boys track head coach Paul Kendrick said, ìthe core of our team is too young for the varsity meet and we only had a handful of upperclassmen. We had a lot of freshmen and sophomores competing against the best competition in the state.î
For the boys, sophomore Derek Peterson earned All-Conference honors with his second place finish in the discus with a throw of 140 feet. Tryn Almendinger placed fourth with his throw of 139í-1î followed by Tyler Kleinhoizen throw of 133í-8î that put him in the finals.
ìThe weight men probably scored half our teamís points,î Kendrick said.
On the girls side, the discus was a strong event as well. Junior Becky Alexander set a new meet record with her throw of 121í-3î that earned her All-Conference honors and first place.
Still in throwing, Peterson finished fourth in the shot put with a throw of 5í-2.5î that earned him All-Conference Honorable Mention. Almendinger and Kleinhuizen finished sixth and seventh. Alexander finished in the top ten in the shot put as well.
In the running events, the Rangers had some success on an individual level.
Freshman Kristi Buerkle finished third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.45 and second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 58.44. Senior Laura Edlund finished third in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:20.61, less than three seconds behind the winner. Senior Kristin Howe placed second in the 3200-meter run with a time of 11:08.15. All three girls earned All-Conference honors for their top three finishes.
Senior Lorin Skoglund finished fourth in the 400-meter dash with a personal best time of 52.37 to earn All-Conference Honorable Mention.
The 4x400-meter team of Erick Stolber, Skoglund, Brandon Neujahr and Jessie Kolbol was seeded eighth, but finished fifth with a time of 3:30. The 4x100-meter team of Neujahr, Alex Boerum, Kolbol and Jake Brown had a personal best time of 45.3, dropping their time almost 2 seconds.
The 4x800-meter team of Jordon Bengston, Jamison Hull, Tom Kubes, and Ben Fick set out to break a sophomore record in the event. The team finished with a time of 8:49, nearly 15 seconds faster than the previous sophomore school record.
JoAnna Koski placed fifth in the girls high jump with a jump of 4í-10î. In the boys long jump, Neujahrís jump of 19í even put him in eighth place.
ìI think overall we had an outstanding meet,î Kendrick said.
Both the boys and girls track teams will be competing in the section meet Wednesday, June 2 and Saturday, June 5 at Cambridge.
ìWe have outside chance of getting three or four boys to state,î Kendrick said. ìWe need to come up big again and show that we can compete at that level.î
Top of Page
