On Tuesday, March 22nd, MMCRU Boys Track team traveled to Vermillion to participate in the 2022 Dan Lennon Invitational Class B Events. The Dan Lennon is held in the Dakota Dome on the University of South Dakota campus. The Dome has a newly renovated 200 meter indoor track within it, along with long jump, pole vault, and shot put stations. The Royals have not participated at this meet since 2018 due to the pandemic and renovations. On Tuesday, they participated in the Class B section of the invite, which was composed of smaller schools from Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska.
The first two events in this meet were the 60 meter dash and the 60 meter high hurdles. In the 60 meter dash, the Royals had three participants: junior Gunnar Johnson, junior Andrew Barinsky, and freshman Evan Molzen. Johnson placed 19th overall in the preliminary rounds, just three places off from qualifying for the semifinals, and ran a time of 7.48. Barinsky placed 63rd overall in the prelims, and ran a time of 8.28. Molzen placed 80th in the prelims with a time of 9.13 seconds. In the 60 meter hurdles, senior Colin Pick, sophomore Jonah Petersen, and Andrew Barinsky represented MMCRU. Petersen placed 23rd with a time of 10.12, Pick placed 29th with a time of 10.62 seconds, Barinsky placed 40th with a time of 11.31 seconds. The next race on the schedule was the 3200 meter run, which had two heats and is a grueling 16 laps around the track. Sophomore Kaden Galles placed 4th overall out of 28 runners, earning a medal in this race. He ran a MMCRU School Record of 10:36.33. Senior Brayden Dirks placed 10th overall, running a time of 11:24. The next race on the schedule was the Medley Relay, which was a 200-200-400-800 relay. The Royals had two relay teams participating, one in the 4th heat and one in the final heat. MMCRU’s “A” team finished 5th overall out of all the relay teams, finishing with an overall time of 4:01.61. Gunnar Johnson led off the relay with a 24.22 200 meter, and he handed off to freshman Xander Tentinger, who ran a 25.76. Senior Brett Staab ran a 57.05 400, and junior Owen Alesch anchored with a 2:14 800. MMCRU’s “B” team finished 13th overall with a time of 4:14.29. Senior Eban Hicks led off with a 25.03 200, and junior Kaden Neddermeyer then ran a 26.44 200. He handed off to freshman Jace Colling, who ran a 62.09 400, and sophomore Kyler Bork finished off the 800 with a 2:20.
After a brief awards ceremony and the 60 meter dash finals, the Royals returned to action with the 1600 meter run. Kaden Galles fared well once again, placing 4th with a new personal best of 5:06.39. Freshman Clint Staab placed 35th overall with a time of 5:48. Next up was the 4×200 meter relay, in which the Royals had two teams. The first team(composed of Eban Hicks, Colin Pick, Max Stridde, and Xander Tentinger), ran an overall time of 1:45.75. Pick led the way with a split of 26.19 seconds. MMCRU’s second team in the 4×200 relay(composed of freshmen Michael Petersen, Grant Prescott, Tayden Hicks, and Brayden Krug) ran an overall time of 1:53.56. Petersen led the way in splits with a 24.51. The Royals had three runners in the open 800: Brett Staab, Owen Alesch, and freshmen Max Pepper. Staab placed 7th overall out of 54 runners with a time of 2:15. Alesch placed 17th with a 2:23, and Pepper ran a time of 2:54. The final event of the night was the boys’ 4×400 meter relay, in which the Royals had two time. Their “A” squad ran an overall time of 4:09.13. It was composed of Kyler Bork(58.94 split), freshman Jace Colling(65.01 split), freshman Lucas Braun(62.89 split), and junior Max Stridde(61.38 split). MMCRU’s “B” squad ran an overall time of 4:22.92. It was composed of Michael Petersen(61.32 split), Clint Staab(69.11 split), junior Josh Wetter(66.41 split), and Grant Prescott(66.11 split).
Throughout the course of the running events, several Royals participated in field events. In the long jump MMCRU had three boys: Xander Tentinger, Lucas Braun, and Eban Hicks. They jumped: 17’7”, 16’7”, and 16’4”, respectively. Mitchell Schnepf placed 18th in shot put with a throw of 38 feet and 11 inches. Michael Petersen placed 22nd in shot put with a throw of 38 feet, and Michael Rupp had a throw of 34 feet and 2 inches. Jace Colling and Lucas Braun did high jump, but did not reach the starting height of 5 feet and six inches. Head Coach Colin Youde gave his remarks on the meet, “Dan Lennon Relays was an awesome event for our team to be a part of. It was a big meet and we had some guys really step up and compete against some top competition.” The Royal boys will have almost two weeks to prepare for their next meet, which will be on Monday, April 4th, in Marcus. Their next meet will be the Tomahawk Relays which is Thursday, April 7th, in Cherokee. Please come out and watch the Royals compete on the track and in the field events!