SDSU Indoor High School Meet

On Monday April 3rd, I got the chance to go up to the last half of the SDSU Indoor High School Meet. There were many Class A schools from both South Dakota and Iowa competing in the event. Among them, was our local Sioux Falls Christian High School who placed 2nd as a team on the boys side and 3rd on the girls side. 

Boys 800m. Caleb DeWeerd
Caleb had an impressive showing early in the season winning both the 1600m in a time of 4:35.23 and later winning the 800m in 2:03.03. In the 800, Caleb led from the first step and never looked back. Both of DeWeerd’s times would qualify for the state meet in their respected event, however indoor times cannot be counted to qualify for state. It won’t be too long until we will see Caleb’s name in the in season qualifiers list. After the 800, Caleb accredited his success to his dedication during the off season. He said he was running 20-25 miles a week through the brutal winter months. “And of course, God is always good.” He stated.
 
Boys 3200m
Cole Sargent from Miller decided to take the pacing into his own hands right from the gun. Going out in a brisk pace through the first 400m (70 seconds) Sargent strung out the field and made it a two man race for first. Going through the 1200m at 3:45 Sargent and Camden Beller (Sioux City North) had a 6 second lead on Cooper Hitt (Sioux Falls Christian) and Aidan Bauermeister (Spirit Lake). Hitt led Bauermeister since 600m and kept eyeing the leaders, but slowly falling back. Sargent led the leaders through 1600m in5:09. Beller was looking very relaxed though and waited for his time to make a move. 2,000 meters and Beller took charge and pushed the pace while Sargent held on tight. Sargent held on as long as he could but eventually fell back to take 2nd place with an impressive season opener of 10:47.03. Beller went on to just nearly miss the meet record with a time of 10:36.98. The race for third was equally as exciting as Cooper was battling Aiden. Going into the 3200m Sioux Falls Christian was sitting 2nd in the team standings, 6 points behind Spirit Lake. Hitt knew every pointed counted for his team and threw down a gutsy last 400m to pass Bauermester to take third place in a time of 10:52.16. Aidan Bauermeister ran 10:53.96. Sioux Falls Christians’ Vanderhaar also ran down spirit lakes’ Dykema to get fifth and close the team standings by another point.


Girls 3200m.
The Girls 3200m was led by Deubrook’s Josie Olsen with Hursey (Flandreu), Gregerson (Plankinton), and Sioux City North’s Lillyanna Yebra following in the lead pack. After the first 800, it was all these four separated from the field. Madilyn Hursey made a move at 1,000 meters to get things rolling. Going through the mile in 6:13, these girls were all looking confident, but it was Yebra at 1800m who put in a dominating move that gapped the other three girls by 30 meters over the next lap and a half. She went on to win by over 20 seconds and ran a 12:13.98. Although Yebra was knew she had the victory with 800 to go, that wasn’t enough for her. She needed to run the last 800 in less than 3 minutes and 10 seconds to break the meet record. Closing with an 87 second last 400m, Yebra made the record look like no problem.  The race may have been over for first but Gregerson and Hursey were battling back and forth for the second spot. After a few back and forth’s it was Hursey that pulled away from Gregerson  who ran 12:36.74 and 12:44.21 respectively. Josie Olsen finished fourth in 12:56.67. Sioux Falls Christian’s Mia Schnabel and Mady Thurston ran the last half of the race together to have a photo finish both finishing in 13:52. 


-Jase Kraft