’Cats host Black Hills Conference

The race to the postseason is well underway, and the Custer High School track team competed in its final home meet of the season last Thursday as it hosted the annual Black Hills Conference meet.
“Scoring-wise, we don’t always go for scores and points,” head coach Karen Karim said of the strategy for the meet. “We had a couple of misfortunes where we could have scored a few more points.”
Rather than focus on the team title, which the Class AA schools in the conference routintely win due to their numbers, the Wildcats continued to focus on improving position for the state meet.
Among the Wildcat champions was Karyn Ellerton, who continued to shine in the throwing events, winning both the shot put and discus with throws of 37-11 1/2 and 133-0, respectively.
Another familiar championship face was Tenlee Stiefel, who continued her mastery of the pole vault, clearing 12-9 to win the girls title.
The Wildcats also had the champion in the boys pole vault, as Ezra Wollman shot to the top of the Class A rankings when he cleared a personal record (PR) of 13-9 on his way to the gold medal.
The Wildcat boys did not have any second-place finishes, but picked up a third place from Carter Cooper in the 3200 at 10:49.71, as well as from the 3200 relay team of Peyton Krueger, Zane Gunnell, Jared Cooper and Carter Cooper at 8:53.80.
Gunnell also placed fourth in the 800 at 2:13.47, as did Mason Dirkes in the high jump with a top height of 5-7 and Ayden Dooley in the pole vault with a top height of 12-0.
Fifth-place finishes included Lincoln Golder in the shot put at 44-7, Dirkes in the 110 hurdles in a PR time of 16.02, Adam Hohn in the 3200 at 11:13.27 and Kian Rusch in the 1600 at 4:40.79.
Zach Cooper was sixth in the 400 in a PR time of 53.05, as was Wyatt DeFreece in the pole vault at 11-0 and the medley relay team of Dooley, Will Kimball, Ian Schiffer and Cheydon McPhee at 4:12.07.
The Wildcats picked up a handful of seventh-place finishes, including Logan Olson in the shot put with a best throw of 42-6 1/2, Brady Virtue in the javelin with a best throw of 129-7 and Kimball and McPhee tying in the high jump with a top height of 5-5.
Two relay teams placed seventh, as the 800 team of Wollman, Zach Cooper, Marcus Merrill and Danny Immormino posted a time of 1:36.06, and the 1600 team of Zach Cooper, Rusch, Daniel Wozny and Jared Cooper ran a time of 3:40.51.
Eighth-place finishes came from Immormino in the 100 at 11.42 and McPhee in the 100 hurdles in a PR time of 16.81.
The girls had three second-place finishes, including Siena Schultz in the 300 hurdles at 49.11, Jessica Hite in the shot put with a PR throw of 36-3 1/2 and Rylan Lowe in the discus with a top throw of 113-7.
Morgan Busch placed third in the 300 hurdles in a PR time of 53.66, as did the 3200 relay team of Kinglsey Ludwig, Brianna Noble, Makenzi Ham and Mikayla Dennis in a time of 4:29.83.
The Wildcats got one fourth-place finish from Schultz in the 100 in a PR time of 12.99, and picked up a fifth-place finish from Dennis in the 800 in a PR time of 2:29.48.
Sixth-place finishes came from the 400 relay team of Schultz, Taylor Busch, Gloria Keller and Stiefel at 52.73, and the 1600 relay team of Taylor Busch, Ludwig, Kiran Pesicka and Keira Nelson at 4:29.83.
Keller placed seventh in the pole vault with a top height of 8-3, while Stiefel was eighth in the 200 at 26.91, a PR.
“Overall we had some PRs and good things happening for us,” Karim said. “Even a couple JV kids had their best marks. That’s a good thing for them. I want them to finish up on a good note.”
Sturgis won the team boys title by piling up 196.5 points. Custer finished fifth with 76.5 points.
For the girls, Spearfish ran away with the title with 212.5 points, while the Custer girls finished fourth at 79.5.
On May 12 some members of the team headed north to Lead for the Mountain West Invitational.
Dirkes placed first in the 110 hurdles in a time of 16.68, while also placing second in the high jump by clearing a PR height of 5-10.
McPhee was third in the high jump at 5-8 and fourth in the 110 hurdles at 19.40, while Jameson Wiles was second in the discus at 126-10 and sixth in the shot put at 39-1.
For the girls, Riley Messer placed fourth in both the 100 and 300 hurdles at times of 17.99 and 54.36, respectively, while Schultz won the 300 hurdles at 50.17 and Nelson was third in the same race at 53.52.
The Wildcats have two “last chance” meets this week, the first of which took place at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City yesterday. The results of that meet were unavailable at press time.
The other meet is Thursday in Wall, a meet some members might attend depending upon their standings in the state rankings heading into the day. Last chance meets run through Friday. The top 24 qualifers in each event qualify for state, although some schools have more than three qualifiers in an event (the max amount allowed) and that will free up spots for other athletes.
“I live in a panic state of somebody being beaten out on the other side of the state at a last-minute qualifier,” Karim said. “There may be a couple of kids who need to go (to Wall).”