ORIGINALLY WRITTEN
Goessel athletes ran into a wild roller-coaster of weather, emotions and performances at the two-day state track meet.
The weather on Friday was “see-your-breath” cold, drizzle and rain storms, which caused the first postponement of part of a state meet within living memory. The events resumed Saturday on schedule and Friday’s unfinished events blended in as the sun came out and the athletes baked in the heat.
Goessel’s athletes went on a similar ride. On Friday, bad luck struck first with Jeremy Voth’s fall in the 110-meter hurdles, followed by a third handoff disqualification for the girls’ 4×100. The cold caused Lindsey Unruh to have leg cramps and stumble to an eighth-place prelim finish in the 400 meters in 65.84.
Saturday began cold and early as Ben Goering pole vaulted to 14th place at the opening height of 11-6. Daniel Silbereisen then ran his second-best 3,200 meters of the year in 10:38.51, but still finished 14th.
The sun broke through at noon for Melinda Stucky’s high jump. She went 4-10 for eighth, but missed a medal by one place. Silbereisen then put on a furious home-stretch kick in the 1,600 meters to finish sixth and earn Goessel’s only medal in a time of 4:40.02
In the 300m hurdles, senior Katie Schroeder ran a personal best of 51.1, placing sixth in her heat but out of the medals. Voth finished the same way, with a year’s best of 43.4 in the boys’ race.
To cap the night, the 4×400 team of Schroeder, Darla Funk, Ashley Soyez and Unruh knocked five seconds off their year’s best time to run 4:22.9 and finish fifth in their heat.
