Saint girls win their own home meet

By Kristi Nixon

ST. ANSGAR — The St. Ansgar girls won their home meet on Tuesday, March 28, shaking off cold temperatures to win seven events, including four relays, to score 137 points and hold off runner-up Osage (130).

Riceville girls scored 20 points to finish eighth out of eight teams.

Saint senior Madison Hillman swept the throws with efforts of 35 feet, 3 inches in the shot put and 105-1 in the discus, one of only two competitors to surpass 100 feet during the meet. The other was Ericka Power of Osage (103-9).

“Always nice to win a meet, especially at home,” Saints coach Phil Baldus said. “Our field events people set the tone with Madison Hillman winning both the shot put and discus, Madi Schmidt was third in the shot and Lindsay Kruse fourth in the discus. Brylee Wynia had a good night in the high jump . . .”

Also earning a pair of individual medals in the meet for the Saints was Brylee Wynia, who won the high jump at 4-10 and taking third in the 100.

Relay wins were gained by the Saints 4×100, 4×400, sprint medley and distance medley relays.

“We obviously had a good night in the relays winning four and placing second in two others,” Baldus said. “There were some very talented 400 meter runners, but we don’t know where they are going to run until we get started.

“Kadence Huck, the Class 1A 400-meter champion from Nashua-Plainfield; Jacey Johnston from Osage; and Kiya Johnson, the Class 1A 400-meter hurdle champion from North Butler are as good as they get. As it turned out, they were in many open events while we were trying to run solid relays. Fortunately, we were deep enough on that night to place in the open events where we ran.”

Osage got three gold medals from freshman Jacey Johnston in the 100, 200 and 400. Her older sister, Katelyn, won the 3,000 while running the race by herself in 11 minutes, 21.38 seconds and topped a field of three in the 1,500, including freshman teammate Scarlett Byrnes, who was second, by 12 seconds. Byrnes won the 800, finishing ahead of the Saints’ Kinsey Anderson by nine seconds.

“Some girls handled the cold weather well, while others were not able to adjust as easily,” Osage girls coach Adam Brinkman said…

The full story appears in the April 5 print and e-editions of the Enterprise Journal.