A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
South Ridge's Evan Kajala races ahead of Cromwell-Wright runners Theo Mickelson, foreground, and Shade Anderson in an early heat of the boys 100-meter dash at last Thursday's Esko Showcase meet.
Runners give their all in the final stretch of the girls 4x200 relay Thursday, which was run in two heats. Pictured from front to back are Hermantown's Adaeze Enemuoh, ML/WR's India Johnson, Esko's Whitney Hanson and Cloquet's Kennedy Wick.
Several local sprinters race in one of the five heats held for the 100-meter dash during the Esko Showcase meet last week. Pictured from left are Esko's Graham Hartlieb and Derek Nooyan, a Chisholm runner, ML/WR's Chase Clausen and Esko's Jacion Owens.
Cloquet's Makenzie Lynch leaps in the long jump at Esko Thursday. Lynch finished in 10th place with a top jump of 14 feet, 5 inches.
Cloquet's Eli Heehn competes in the high jump. Heehn and teammate Joe Bailey tied for seventh. The top Carlton County high jumper was Braedyn Male of Esko in third place.
Esko hosted one of the largest local track meets of the year last Thursday at the Esko track and field complex. Eleven schools competed at the varsity and junior varsity boys and girls divisions at the Esko Showcase meet.
"Every year our Esko Sports Alliance puts this meet on as one of our three big fundraisers to go along with the Bob Thompson golf tournament and the Coaches Classic over the holidays," said Esko girls coach Matt Peterson. "Bill Hudspith is the meet manager and Dennis Rengo puts tireless hours into organizing all facets of the meet."
Besides Esko, the competing schools were Carlton/Wrenshall, Cromwell-Wright, Chisholm, Cloquet, Greenway/Nashwauk-Keewatin, Hermantown, Mesabi East, Minneapolis North, Moose Lake/Willow River and South Ridge.
"In the past, weather hasn't cooperated with us, but we were extremely fortunate to have nice weather this year," Peterson said.
Added to the Showcase this year were individual awards sponsored by the Esko Sports Alliance.
"They created two separate awards," he said, explaining that one boy and one girl were each named MVP of the meet in honor of the late Julian Bertogliat. "[It's] a tremendous gesture of honoring Bert for everything he meant to Esko track and field over the years."
The winner of the boys award was Elliott Wasche of ML/WR, the winner of both the 1600- and 3200-meter runs. The girls winner was Esko's Kaitlyn McConnell, who won the 100, the long jump, the 4x100 meter relay and finished second in the 200-meter dash.
Cloquet won the boys varsity division with a total of 140.7 points, followed by Esko with 117.03 points. ML/WR was third followed by Minneapolis North, Mesabi East, GNK, Cromwell-Wright, Hermantown, South Ridge, Chisholm and Carlton/Wrenshall.
Esko won the girls division with 151 points, followed by GNK, Cloquet, ML/WR, Hermantown, Minneapolis North, Chisholm, Cromwell-Wright, Mesabi East, Carlton/Wrenshall and South Ridge.
Find the complete results for last week's gigantic track meet at http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/546051/results.
