Girls tie for conference crown

Josey Wahlstrom and Jojo Larsen appear to be joined at the hip. On the track they are, anyway.
The two finished first and second in three races at last Friday’s Black Hills Conference meet, helping propel the Wildcat girls to 164 points, putting them in a tie with Spearfish for the team championship.
Initially the Spartans were declared team champions, but it was later discovered meet officials had counted javelin—which is only officially contested at the Class AA level—was counted toward the team score. When those points were subtracted from the team totals, the teams were declared to have tied.
“They (Spearfish) have so many kids. They have a really big, deep team,” Custer head coach Karen Karim said. “I could have run the legs off my kids and it wouldn’t have been an issue, but I didn’t want to do that. We gave away some points there.”
As for Wahlstrom and Larsen, they took turn winning the sprints, as Larsen won the 100 in a personal record time of 12.6 seconds, followed by Wahlstrom in 12.76, which was also a personal record.
Wahlstrom took the title in the 200, posting a time of 27.2, while Larsen finished as runner-up at 27.51. Wahlstrom was victorious in the 400 as well, narrowly missing going under the minute mark with a time of 1:00.01, while Larsen finished at 1:01.36.
Kellyn Kortemeyer continued her conference dominance in the throws, winning both the shot put and discus with throws of 43-10 and 140-5, respectively.
One relay team placed first for the girls, as Kylee Ellerton, Maya Tennyson, Rachel Miklos and Brit Wheeler won the medley relay in a time of 4:23.02.
Besides Larsen and Wahlstrom’s pile of second place finishes, the Wildcat got three more silver medals. Alice Sedlacek finished second in the discus with a best throw of 114-9, while Taylor Bland was second in the javelin with a top throw of 93-0, a personal record. Ciana Stiefel finished second in the pole vault with a top height of 9-6.
Third place finishes included Bailey Cass, who improved her best triple jump mark by a foot, landing at 32-5, and Ramsey Karim, who was third in the 1600 at 5:23.09.  The 1600 relay team of Karim, Taylor Busch, Kadense Dooley and Miklos also grabbed a bronze medal at 4:15.66.
Dooley grabbed a fourth-place finish in the 1600 at 5:28.84, while Torri Virtue was fourth in the shot put with a best throw of 35-10. Other individual fourth-place finishes included Wahlstrom in the pole vault at 8-6 and Emily Borkowski in the discus with a personal record throw of 105-7.
Two relay teams finished fourth for the Wildcats. The 800 team of Ellerton, Tennyson, Busch and Jayda Bennett did so in a time of 1:53.70, while the 3200 relay team of Wheeler, Keira Alfson, Eva Studt and Mattea Marshall did the same at 10:20.75.
Dooley finished fifth place in the 800 at 2:30.44, the team’s only fifth-place finish. Studt picked up a sixth-place finish in the 800 at 2:32.11, the team’s only sixth-place finish.
Seventh-place finishes came from Brook Bennett in the javelin with a best throw of 80-1, as well as Tennyson in the long jump at 14-9 1/2. Cass was seventh in the high jump with a best height of 4-10, and Alfson rounded out the individual seventh-place finishes in the 3200 at a time of 12:54.15.
One relay team placed seventh for the Wildcats, as Paige Fitzler, Adela Marakova, Cass and Tennyson finished the 400 relay at 54.24.
Blake Boyster has another monster meet for the boys, as he won the 100 in a personal record time of 10.84, while also winning the 400 in a time of 49.28, which was also a personal record. He finished second in the 200 at 23.45, and ran for the 1600 relay team that finished in first at 3:37.18. He was joined on the team by Sam Gaulke, Alex Van Horn and Miles Ellman.
Ellman also had a big day on the track, as along with his gold medal in the 1600 relay he placed second in the 800 at 2:05.18 and was a member of the gold medal-winning 3200 relay team that ran a time of 8:38.78. He was joined on that team by Gaulke, Van Horn and Drew Lehman.
Gage Grohs grabbed a silver medal for the Wildcats in the 1600, running a personal-record time of 4:38.06. Also finishing second was Justin Doyle in the shot put with a best throw of 48-0.
The Wildcats got one fourth place finish, that coming from the leaping ability of Cade Lehman, who had a top jump of 39-3 1/2 in the triple jump.
Dossen Elmore finished in fifth place in the discus with a best throw of 120-4, while Preston Drew was fifth in the 1600 at 4:51.39. Doyle finished sixth in the discus at 120-0.
A pair of Wildcat relay teams finished in seventh place. The 800 team of Landon Leighton, Mical Grace, Danny Immormino and Hadyn Yackley finished in 1:39.58, while the medley team of Yackley, Immormino, Leighton and Drew finished at 4:16.48.
Thursday the team heads to Rapid City Christian for the Region 8A Meet, the team’s last chance to qualify additional athletes for the state meet. Karim said the team is still looking to qualify athletes in some events.
“A few kids are on the bubble and want to compete in the events they can possibly make it in,” she said. “Other kids are trying to fine tune or improve a mark.”
The meet is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.