All Decade - Boys Track

By: 
Jason Ferguson
Here it is. Your last all-decade team, boys track and field. I knew picking some of this team would be hard. I didn’t know it would be impossible. The Wildcat boys had an embarrassment of riches in the distance races, as well as in the throws. We are talking all-time greats in school history. Picking the 1600 and 3200 took a lot of number crunching and a lot of, “Well, I have to pick somebody.” It was that hard. The 3200 had the four greatest runners of the race in school history all in the same decade. That’s nuts. Sprints weren’t as strong, and the jumps weren’t either, but you can see why the Wildcats were consistently at or near the top of the conference and state championship contenders every year. This team is absolutely stacked. It’s been fun doing these all-decade teams and I hope it gave you a bit of a sports fix while there aren’t a lot of sports going on. I forgot just how much work putting these teams together is. I received a lot of good feedback and I appreciate hearing it. Just because it’s over doesn’t mean you can’t still shoot me your thoughts. If I left someone off a team, let me know. I always have time to talk sports.
 
100 - Chad Bryant - Class of 2012 - This is Bryant’s fourth all-decade team. If you’re counting, he was also on the golf team, football team and basketball team. Yeah, he was an athlete. The Wildcats didn’t have a ton of award-winning sprinters last decade, but Bryant won the 100 at the conference meet in 2012, so that places him on our team just ahead of Rock Hayford, who posted some fast times in the event while also placing at conference and region meets.
 
200 - Chad Bryant - 2012 - Same story here. When Bryant won the 100 at conference in 2012, he also won it in this race as well. He edges out Kyle Kobza, who placed third at region once and had some good times in the race.
 
400 - Brennan Witt - 2014 - Witt was too busy killing the competition in the 800 and 1600 to run the 400 too much, but that didn’t stop him from running the fourth-fastest time in school history in the event in 2013. The school record holder? His father, Walker Witt. It’s in the genes! He won the conference in the event in 2013. 
 
800 - Brennan Witt - 2014 - Here’s your first “well, duh” entry on this team. Witt is one of the most accomplished half-mile runners to ever put on shoes in not only school history, but state history. Witt is a four-time state champion in the event, winning it in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. He won it in the conference a couple of times, and the only reason he doesn’t have more conference or region titles in it is because he simply didn’t run it at those meets. He was unbeatable in the race in the Class A ranks. He holds the school record in the event, at 1:53.26. That’s nearly four seconds better than the second-fastest Wildcat has ever run it. That, my friends, is flying. It is the fourth-fastest 800 in state history.
 
1600 - Chance Dooley - 2016 - This is the first of two races in which it was impossible to pick a team representative. The next one was just as hard, if not harder. There are four former Wildcats you could legitimately make the case that they should be the mile representative on this team: Dooley, Cody Herman, Joe Rush and Witt. Witt is a state champion in the event, a claim Dooley cannot make. Rush placed third at state in the event in 2018. Herman is a three-time conference champion in the event, placed second at state in the event his senior year and was eighth in 2011. As for Dooley, he placed third at state in 2016 and fifth at state in 2015. Because he and Herman both placed at state in the event twice, I looked at their average place in the event—Dooley’s was fourth; Herman’s was fifth. And finally, the trump card—Dooley is the school record-holder in the event, just ahead of Herman and Witt, who are second and third all-time in Custer history. This race was absolutely loaded last decade and you could put any of the four in here and I couldn’t really argue with it. I didn’t want to cop out with a tie, so Dooley is the choice.
 
3200 - Chance Dooley - 2016 - Yep, it’s Dooley again, but again he is flanked by three other dominant two-milers. Let’s start with Cody Herman, a three-time placewinner at state (fifth in 2011, third in 2012, first in 2013), a two-time conference champion and has the fourth fastest time in school history in the event. Then there is Joe Rush, who is a state champion and the school’s record-holder in the event. For good measure, let’s throw in Logan Burns, who has a pile of postseason accomplishments in the race, including placing seventh at state in 2011, first in the region and eighth in state in 2012, second at both the conference and state meets in 2013, and first in the conference, region and state his senior year. Wow. But in the end I once again had to go with Dooley, who is a two-time state champion in the event (2015, 2016) and has the second-fastest time in school history. If you’re counting at home, I just named the four fastest two-milers in school history and they all ran in the same decade. Rush is the record holder, followed by Dooley, Burns and Herman. Split the trophy into fourths and each take a part, men. This was nearly impossible to choose. 
 
100  - Jared Thomsen - 2013 - Last week it was Julianne Thomsen in both of the hurdle categories. This week it’s her brother Jared. His accomplishments include a conference championship in the event in 2012, along with placing second in the state in the event that same year. The next year he repeated as conference champion as well as state champion in the event. He is the school record-holder in the event as well. 
 
300 hurdles - Jared Thomsen - 2013 -  You could argue the 300 hurdles was the better of the two events for Thomsen, although he was great at both. He placed second in the state meet in this event in 2012 and was second in the conference and first in the region in the event in 2013 before going on to win the state championship. He was named the Class A Most Outstanding Male Athlete at that year’s track meet, has the 10th-fastest 300 hurdle time in state history and owns the school record in the event.
 
Discus - Tyler Schultz - 2013 - Who else would it be? Schultz was a monster in the discus, and it wasn’t even his best event. We will get to that in a moment. Schultz won the conference and region in the event in 2010, 2011, and 2012 and won state in the event in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is the school record-holder in the event, which is no small feat considering the throwing history at the school. 
 
Shot Put - Tyler Schultz - 2012 - Here is Schultz’s best event (in my opinion). He was conference and region champion in the event in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and placed second in the event at state in 2010 and 2011 before winning it in 2012. On his last throw as a Wildcat at Wildcat Field during the region meet his senior year, he uncorked a state record that still stands: 70 feet, six inches. Schultz is the only South Dakota boys track athlete to ever eclipse the 70-foot mark in the shot put. If that doesn’t make you the best of a decade, I don’t know what does.  
 
Pole Vault - Clayton Wahlstrom - 2012 - Wahlstrom was state champion in this event in 2012, was second the following year and fourth his senior year. He was also a conference and region champion along the way, as well as a conference runner-up. I almost left off he was eighth in the event at state in 2011, as well.
 
Long Jump - Daniel Sedlacek - 2021 - Placed third at both the conference and region meets last year as a sophomore. I have to believe he would have placed right up there this year had COVID-19 not deprived us of track season altogether.
 
Triple Jump - Adam Baker - 2016 - Baker is a conference runner-up and region winner in the event and placed eighth at state in the event in 2014. 
 
High Jump - Isaac Powers - 2020 - Powers would have been a senior this year at CHS, but moved with his family to Missouri. He won the region meet in the high jump in 2019 and has the second-highest jump in school history.

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