Posted: 4/13/05
Boys track in for a season of growth
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Joe Drennan
Sports Editor
With a team that is made up of 20 freshmen and 25 sophomores Forest Lake High School boys track head coach Paul Kendrick sees this season as a learning season.
ìWe have talent, but weíre young,î Kendrick said. ìWeíre going to have to work extremely hard to be competitive this year.î
The Rangers only have six seniors on the team who will be looked upon to lead the younger athletes. The seniors are captains Brandon Neujahr, John Schwietz and Pat Van Beckum along with Kyle Fuller, Josef Maier and Matt Mach.
ìKyle (Fuller) is more helping as an assistant coach as he is coming back from illness,î Kendrick said.
The strength of the Rangers team is the weight men throwing the discus.
Junior Derek Peterson leads the weight men with sophomore Tyler Kleinhuizen and Van Beckum.
ìThe weight men showed a lot of promise in the Conference Relays,î Kendrick said. ìThey had the best combined total in the discus and took third in the shot put, just two feet from second.î
The sprinters will be made up by Alex Boerum, Eric Stolberg, Jessie Kolbow and Schwietz.
ìThose are our returning guys with experience,î Kendrick said. ìWe have some young talent coming in that just needs some work.î
Kendrick said the fastest freshman so far is Dillon Grant.
Neujahr, Jack Wittrock and Fuller could also contribute as sprinters.
The distance runners have several returners who also ran cross country in the fall. Jorden Bengston will run the 800 for the Rangers, Jamison Hull the two mile race, Ben Fick who runs both the mile and two mile and Tom Kubes and Zac Clark.
Mack was the top cross country runner in the fall, but Kendrick is concerned over his winter training since he did not train much.
Sophomore Brandon Yetter might open some eyes. Yetter has already opened Kendrickís eyes after running a 5:04 mile indoors just before the season started.
Freshman Ben Brodin can be an asset for the Rangers in the half mile race. Brodin is running a 2:14 half mile right now, but Kendrick believes heíll be down to 2:06 at the end of the season.
Neujahr will lead the jumpers as heís returning with experience along with Stolberg and Maier. Aaron Anderson could earn some points for the Rangers too as heís already broken the sophomore triple jump record.
The returning hurdlers are led by sophomore Matt Hansmann along with Geoff Cass and Nate Robertson. Junior Dustin Kendrick would have contributed in the hurdles, but he broke his leg during the hockey season and is recovering from that injury.
ìWe expect that core to be very competitive this year,î Kendrick said.
Alex Boerum, Brandon Crowley and Maier will all compete in the pole vault. Freshman Jake Schmidt has shown some promise in the pole vault, already clearing 10 feet.
ìHeís definitely got something there,î Kendrick said.
Sophomore Matt Schwartz and Dustin Bently along with Peterson will be the top shot putters on the Rangers this year.
Aaron Tetzlaff is a junior, but is trying his hand at the shot put for the first time this year.
ìWe have put together a core of talent that down the road should be able to compete for a championship and thatís our goal,î Kendrick said. ìLast year Forest Lake dominated at the freshman/sophomore meet so Iíd say weíre an up and coming program.
The Rangers next meet is Saturday at Park (Cottage Grove) at noon.
Forest Lake Times
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