Janesville Craig, Janesville Parker divvy up three team trophies from rainy Cougar Relays

JANESVILLE — Track and field isn’t the most spectator-friendly of the high school sports to begin with, and discus and shot put — usually contested far from the main grandstand — can often be an afterthought for those who do show up to watch a meet.

But at the 75th annual Cougar Relays on Friday night, Janesville’s Craig’s boys and girls throwing corps took their turn in the spotlight in the highly anticipated 400-meter throwers relays.

Cougars foursomes won both races with the boys race decided by a dramatic come-from-behind charge down the homestretch from Brian Deltgen.

He took the baton in second place, about 20 to 25 meters behind Janesville Parker’s Landen Wright, and Deltgen chased him down to cross the finish line first.

“I thought I was going to track him down from the start, but I looked and thought, ‘That’s kind of far,’ and then I realized he was slowly getting closer,” Deltgen said of his go-ahead sprint. “The last, like, 5 feet, I barely passed him.”

Those wins capped what turned out to be a banner meet for both Janesville high schools.

Craig and Parker finished 1-2 in both the boys and girls team standings — the Cougars beat the Vikings in the girls meet while Parker won the boys meet over Craig — and it was the hosts who won the combined team championship at the state’s oldest relay meet.

“We had a lot of kids who were willing to step up and take chances in things that maybe they’re not super used to,” Craig girls coach Brandon Miles said when asked what stood out to him on the night. He used Abbi Gryttenholm as an example, who is not usually a hurdler but helped her team take second in the team 300 hurdle event.

In addition to the 10 team points they provided in the throwers relay to end the night, Craig’s boys throwers also took first in the shot put and discus competitions to bolster the Cougars’ point total.

Parker’s boys had a handful of dominant victories on the track fueled by Cayden Brandenburg, Avery Eastman and others. They both ran in the winning 400-meter and 1,600-meter relays and in the 800-meter sprint medley, and in the sprint relays the Vikings didn’t win, they finished in second.

Parker also won the 3-by-110-meter high hurdles shuttle to start the meet and finished second in the team 300 hurdles.

“It feels good to beat our rivals from across the river,” Parker hurdler Xander Vallee said.

For the Craig girls team, a distance group led by Abi Anderson won the three longest races of the night.

“I’m so proud of my teammates and all the work we’ve put in,” Anderson said. “I love this meet. I’ve been looking forward to it for a couple of months, actually.”

First, the Cougars won the team 3,200-meter run, in which the three runners’ times are added together to determine a team champ. Next came wins in the 3,200-meter relay and the 4,000-meter distance medley.

Anderson ran in all three of those wins, logging a total of 5,600 meters on the track (3,200 in the team run, 800 in the 3,200 relay and 1,600 more to close out the distance medley). Julianna Moran also put in 4,400 meters of hard running in the team run and the distance medley.

“None of this would be possible if we didn’t get up early in the morning on Saturdays and go for our long runs,” Moran said. “We’re trying really hard to work really hard in the offseason so we can really put down the hammer and lay it out during the season.”

Rainy day

Rain, heavy at times, beleaguered the first hour and a half of Friday’s meet. Conditions were particularly brutal during the shuttle high hurdles races and the 3,200-meter team runs.

“Some of the early races where it was pretty nasty — it was coming down hard and it was windy — our hurdlers battled through that,” Parker boys coach Dick Schuh said.

Officials decided to cancel pole vault competition for both sexes over safety concerns, and the boys triple jump and girls long jump competitions were canceled after the rainfall inundated the runways and sand pits at Monterey Stadium.

“Anytime you run a meet like this and you’re not able to finish an event ... it’s such a bummer for those kids,” Craig boys coach Jeff Deininger said. “But the first thing you look at is, ‘Is this going to be safe for us?’”

With a conference quadrangular meet scheduled for Monday, Milton’s teams, which won the girls hurdles shuttle and the boys 3,200-meter team run and took second in both girls shot put and discus, decided to leave the relays early.

Narrow margins

The Red Hawks’ win in the boys 3,200-meter team run came by an almost-impossibly slim margin over a combined 6 miles of race distance.

Milton’s Jonathan Flowers won the race in 10 minutes, 21.70 seconds, and his time combined with those of teammates Mason Sorge and Daniel Stewart added up to 33 minutes, 0.8 seconds.

Roman Koch was Craig’s fastest two-miler on the day, finishing in 10:31.00. Along with Owen Hotchkiss and Cameron Ennocenti, their times totaled 33 minutes, 1.5 seconds, just 0.7 seconds behind Milton.

Craig suffered another narrow runner-up finish in the girls team 300 hurdles with Kaylie Conway, Abbi Gryttenholm and Alyson Sheridan’s total time of 3 minutes, 0.14 seconds coming up just 1.4 seconds short of Sugar River’s 2:59.00.

Milton’s second-place finishes in the girls shot put and discus also were very close. Edgerton’s cumulative shot put total beat out that of the Red Hawks by 17.5 inches, and Craig’s discus total was 3 feet, 1 inch better than Milton’s.

Edgerton also would’ve had a good shot to win the discus had they recorded a third mark. Madyson Lo, who had the best discus and shot put throws of the day, and Masame Gresens combined for 195 feet, 10 inches of distance. A third mark of just 35 feet, 10 inches would’ve given the Tide the team title in that event, but their third thrower scratched on all her attempts.

Cautious approach

Both Craig and Parker used some caution when it came to lineup decisions on Friday night. The Cougars scratched their boys 400- and 200-meter relays, both of which are filled with runners with state experience. For the Vikings, Paul Kim sat out of several relays he was originally scheduled to run.

“Our meets are building blocks for stuff later in the year, so we’re trying to balance getting training effects from meets and keeping kids healthy,” Schuh said.

75TH COUGAR RELAYS

At Monterey Stadium, Janesville; Girls long jump, boys triple jump and all pole vault competition canceled because of inclement weather

Scoring: For team track events (3,200 run and 300 hurdles), three times are added to determine event winner; in field events, three athletes’ best marks are added to determine event winner.

BOYS TEAM SCORES

Janesville Parker 119, Janesville Craig 112, Sugar River (Belleville/New Glarus) 89, Edgerton 62, Delavan-Darien 60, Wilmot 53, Beloit Memorial 28, Milton 24

BOYS EVENT WINNERS PLUS CRAIG, PARKER, MILTON, EDGERTON TOP THREE FINISHERS

400 relay — 1. Janesville Parker (Jonathon Aguiniga, Cayden Brandenburg, Mason Chmielewski, Avery Eastman) 44.30. 400 relay frosh/soph — 1. Janesville Craig (Oliver Clark, Nathan Daskam, Hayden Kerbel, Caydin Higbee) 46.30. 2. Janesville Parker (Eastman, Cody Slater, Palmer Butters, Nolan Ziegelmann) 47.10. 400 throwers relay — 1. Janesville Craig (Austin Kraft, Dane Wagner, Joe Austin, Brian Deltgen) 52.44. 2. Janesville Parker (Gavin Meier, Jaxon Edwards, Evan Curlee, Landen Wright) 52.55. 800 relay — 1. Sugar River 1:35.11. 2. Janesville Parker (Jayvion Hill, Mason Chmielewski, Cody Slater, Palmer Butters) 1:36.21. 800 sprint medley — 1. Janesville Parker (Aguiniga, Chmielewski, Eastman, Cayden Brandenburg) 1:35.30. 2. Janesville Craig (Freddie Odom, Kerbel, Jack Dostal, Aiden English) 1:45.70. 3. Edgerton (Austin Obermueller, Sergio Rosales, Gabe Salgado, Kyler Knauf) 1:46.20. 800 sprint medley frosh/soph — 1. Janesville Craig (Joe Stanley, Oliver Clark, Sam Piper, Parker McCormick) 3:59.50. 2. Janesville Parker (Eastman, Slater, Hill, Jayden Koestler) 4:02.30. 1,600 relay — 1. Janesville Parker 3:33.38. 2. Janesville Craig (Gavin Dempsey, Jack Myre, Brenden Wesson, Roman Koch) 3:45.13. 3,200 relay — 1. Wilmot 8:48.30. 2. Janesville Craig (Myre, Wesson, Leo Powell, Dempsey) 8:49.80. 3. Edgerton (Nicholas Dillman, Garrett Kotnour, Timothy Zielke, Benjamin Lenarz) 9:41.00. 3,200 team run — 1. Milton 33:00.8 (1. Jonathan Flowers 10:21.70). 2. Janesville Craig 33:01.5 (3. Koch 10:31.00). 3. Edgerton 33:23.2 (2. Kotnour 10:30.70). 4,000 distance medley — 1. Janesville Craig (Myre, Dempsey, Wesson, Koch) 11:56.32. 2. Edgerton (Zielke, Advit Sukheja, Kotnour, Lenarz) 12:27.27.

3x100 hurdles shuttle — 1. Janesville Parker (Xander Vallee, Jeff Rowin, Ziegelmann) 55.30. Team 300 hurdles — 1. Sugar River (1. Jack Erickson 41.46) 2:14.23. 2. Janesville Parker 2:16.32 (2. Vallee 42.97. 3. Rowin 45.18). 3. Janesville Craig 2:25.24.

High jump — Best individual mark: Nathan Daskam (JC) 5-8. 1. Janesville Parker 15-2 (t3. Rowin 5-4). 2. Edgerton 15-0 (t3. Cullen Garrett 5-4). Long jump — Best individual mark: Ethan Mitchell (M) 20-3. 1. Delavan-Darien 54-8. 3. Edgerton 52-3. Shot put — 1. Janesville Craig 122-11 (1. Deltgen 47-4; 3. Wagner 39-10). 2. Janesville Parker 116-9.25 (2. Meier 43-1.5). 3. Edgerton 109-2.5. Discus — 1. Janesville Craig 374-2 (1. Wagner 140-10; 3. Deltgen 125-11). 2. Janesville Parker 360-5. 3. Milton 359-7 (2. A.J. Markham 134-0).

GIRLS TEAM SCORES

Janesville Craig 113, Janesville Parker 90, Sugar River 87, Delavan-Darien 82, Wilmot 50, Milton 26, Edgerton 18, Beloit Memorial 7

GIRLS EVENT WINNERS PLUS CRAIG, PARKER, MILTON, EDGERTON TOP THREE FINISHERS

400 relay — 1. Janesville Parker (Mia Riley, Harper Brandenburg, Shay Schuh, Violet McCue) 52.40. 3. Janesville Craig (Mikayla Arensdorf, Jada Trevino, Grace Zas, Elly Neisius) 56.80. 400 relay frosh/soph — 1. Janesville Parker (Makiya Smith, Olivia Schober, Aubree Harwick, Nevaya Greer) 54.00. 400 throwers relay — 1. Janesville Craig (Caleigh Huse, Emily Jenson, Lakyah Dozier, Ahmyla Paige) 1:03.68. 800 relay — 1. Delavan Darien 1:53.65. 2. Janesville Parker (Riley, McCue, Greer, Ny’Zyre Gray) 1:55.66. 800 sprint medley — 1. Janesville Parker (Riley, Schuh, Schober, Brandenburg) 1:55.10. 3. Janesville Craig (Neisius, Trevino, Arensdorf, Raegan Punzel) 2:11.60. 800 sprint medley frosh/soph — 1. Delavan-Darien 4:44.70. 2. Janesville Craig (Kaylee Hernandez-Tenorio, Leah Staack, Abbi Gryttenholm, Zoey Ziegler) 4:53.40. 3. Janesville Parker (Jade Risseeuw, Macy Mills, Smith, Trista Anderson) 4:54.10. 1,600 relay — 1. Janesville Parker (Schuh, Schober, Smith, Brandenburg) 4:23.17. 2. Janesville Craig (Julianna Moran, Addison Fagan, Kaylie Conway, Ziegler) 4:47.44. 3,200 relay — 1. Janesville Craig (Fagan, Abi Anderson, Kendal Richard, Conway) 10:56.20. 3,200 team run 1. Janesville Craig 38:20.3. (1. Anderson 12:41.50. 3. Moran 12:48.10). 4,000 distance medley — 1. Janesville Craig (Moran, Abi Austin, Fagan, Anderson) 14:07.48.

3x100 hurdles shuttle — 1. Milton (Jule Esslinger, Aubrey Burks, Louisa Borsutzky) 58.71. 3. Janesville Craig (Alyson Sheridan, Kaylin Delgado, Conway) 1:04.16. Team 300 hurdles — 1. Sugar River 2:59.00 (1. Addison Edge 53.84). 2. Janesville Craig 3:00.14 (2. Conway 56.38; 3. Gryttenholm 58.21).

High jump — 1. Delavan Darien 13-8 (t1. Addison Stallings 4-8; t1. Grace Johnson 4-8; t3. Sophia Szczap 4-4). Triple jump — 1. Delavan-Darien 92-6 (1. Stallings 35-5). 3. Janesville Parker 47-10 (two marks). Shot put — 1. Edgerton 84-0.5 (1. Madyson Lo 33-5; 3. Masame Gresens 29-9.5) 2. Milton 82-7 (2. Caitlin Zingsheim 30-4). 3. Janesville Craig 77-5.75. Discus — Best individual marks: 1. Lo (E) 106-8. 2. Maddie Meyer (JP) 91-8. 1. Janesville Craig 231-8. 2. Milton 228-7 (3. Zingsheim 91-2).