GRUNDY CENTER – The Grundy Center boys track and field team is building yet another impressive resume as they storm through meet after meet this spring.
The Spartans have been trending this direction for a few years now, and head coach Chris Conger is confident in this group’s staying power.
“Our depth is just phenomenal from the younger classes,” Conger said. “We’re not going anywhere, we’ve got a lot of good young kids that have really optimistic futures.”
In the here and now, the Spartans are team champions (again) after cruising past the competition at the Spartan Boys Invite at Spartan Stadium last Thursday.
The Spartans finished with 205 points, almost double that of runner-up South Tama County. BCLUW was fifth with 77.3 points.
Grundy Center added 11 more gold medals on Thursday, many of which came in individual events where the Spartans not only had a second scorer, but also a third athlete putting up big marks even without scoring team points.
“This is a tremendous group of kids,” Conger said. “They’re winners. They’ve won their whole careers. But they also understand how to put the team together. We’ll talk about our weaknesses, where we need improvement, guys will say ‘Hey, I’ll be willing to go help the team over here.’ And then we just pick each other up.”
Logan Knaack won the 100, Matt Jansen picked up the 200 and 400, Kenny Day won the 1,600, Ethan Sadler finished first in the 3,200, Nick Ascher was the 110 high hurdles winner, Wes Willis got the throwing double in the discus and shot put, and the Spartans won the shuttle hurdle, sprint medley and closed out the night with a win in the 4×400.
Jansen, who anchored the 4×4 to victory and was part of the sprint medley that not only won on Thursday, but set a new school record earlier in the week at the school’s co-ed meet, says the competition is intense at practice.
“We’re all pushing in practice,” Jansen said. “Everyone’s motivated, there’s groups and groups, whether it’s our throwers, sprinters, the distance guys are running with [assistant coach] Dana [Schmidt].”
Handoffs have been an early focus for an athletic group that can still find the technical methods to shed a few seconds off that relay time.
“It’s all about the handoff in that first 200 to 200,” Jansen said of the sprint medley record-breakers – Dayne Zinkula, Zach Opheim, Logan Knaack and Jansen ran 1:36.66 last Tuesday. “That counts a lot too, and the finish too, but it has to be on point.”
After catching up from shaking off some rust in the preseason, handoffs were high on the priority list for Conger.
“It was clear at Belle Plaine that it was a question mark for us,” Conger said. “The next day at practice, we worked on it, put the pieces together and got comfortable with each other.”
Much like two seasons ago when Grundy Center had a similar start to the season, the Spartan coaching staff has to make sure the guys don’t get complacent.
“Winning is hard, and it takes a lot out of the kids,” Conger said. “You always appreciate that. But we built our schedule with intention and there’s a huge uptick this week at Jesup and Hudson. Two phenomenal meets, and we’re looking forward to it.”
BCLUW won three relays on Thursday: Carson Hoffman, Drake Leimbacher, Tyler Bracy and Conrad Hughes teamed up to win the 4×100 in 46.85; the 4×800 team of Noah Gallentine, Nick Pieper, Connor Lynch and Henry Kaisand won in 8:50.53 after an inspired anchor leg from Kaisand; and Bracy, Hughes, Nick Curl and Kaisand joined forces to win the distance medley in 3:56.26.
Hoffman helped add a couple silver medals for the Comets with a solo effort in the 100-meter dash, clocking in at 11.90, and contributing the second leg of the sprint medley team, along with Bracy, Hughes and Lynch that crossed the finish line in 1:41.06.
“I haven’t been able to run the 100 in quite awhile, and that was something they put me in to try to get some points, and I felt really good,” Hoffman said. “Our coach has been really good working us into different things with relays so we can work on our strengths like coming out of blocks.”
The Comets are also rolling with a new head coach as Louis Reicks assumed the reins this spring.
“He’s got a plan for everything,” Hoffman said. “I’d like to say he’s almost like a mad scientist – he’s allowing us to strengthen some things we aren’t as good at, and I think that’s really good as a coach, he’s doing a great job.
“It just feels great to be out here with this group of guys. Over four years, you build a nice bond and it’s great to grow with them.”
Spartan Boys Invite
Teams (top 3 and area) – 1. Grundy Center 205; 2. South Tama County 104; 3. South Hardin 98.3; … 5. BCLUW 77.3.
(Winners and area team scorers)
100 – 1. Logan Knaack (GC) 11.46; 2. Carson Hoffman (BCLUW) 11.90; 4. Dayne Zinkula (GC) 12.10. 200 – 1. Matt Jansen (GC) 23.39; 4. Dayne Zinkula (GC) 24.46; 6. Conrad Hughes (BCLUW) 24.70. 400 – 1. Matt Jansen (GC) 52.61; 4. Connor Lynch (BCLUW) 55.46. 800 – 1. Tommy Tyynismaa (STC) 2:15.71; 2. Ethan Sadler (GC) 2:16.40; 6. Tyler Venenga (GC) 2:18.81; 7. Nick Pieper (BCLUW) 2:19.93. 1,600 – 1. Kenny Day (GC) 4:50.42; 4. Kaden Lynch (GC) 5:21.28. 3,200 – 1. Ethan Sadler (GC) 10:39.89. 110 hurdles – 1. Nick Ascher (GC) 15.99; 4. Cooper Hoy (GC) 17.80; 7. Drake Leimbacher (BCLUW) 18.31. 400 hurdles – 1. Kael Carr (SH) 1:02.21; 5. Carter Gallentine (BCLUW) 1:05.16; 7. Cooper Hoy (GC) 1:06.41. Discus – 1. Wes Willis (GC) 133-0; 5. Brayden Sawyer (GC) 116-9. Shot put – 1. Wes Willis (GC) 43-4.5; 4. Kolby Muller (GC) 39-6.5. High jump – 1. Reed Stonebreaker (WF) 5-11; 2. Brennen Sager (GC) 5-10; 3. Patrick Brown III (GC) 5-8; 6. Noah Gallentine (BCLUW) 5-2. Long jump – 1. Payton Vest (STC) 20-2; 2. Zach Opheim (GC) 19-5.5; 4. Logan Knaack (GC) 19-2. 4×100 – 1. BCLUW (Hoffman, Leimbacher, Bracy, Hughes) 46.85; 2. GC (Laube, Zinkula, Opheim, Ascher) 47.10. 4×200 – 1. South Hardin 1:38.75; 3. GC (Gordon, Laube, Feliciano, Decker) 1:40.59; 7. BCLUW (C. Gallentine, Speicher, Parker, Kemp) 1:49.85. 4×400 – 1. GC (Knaack, Jirovsky, Sager, Jansen) 3:40.96; 2. BCLUW (Lynch, Pieper, N. Gallentine, Kaisand) 3:44.58. 4×800 – 1. BCLUW (N. Gallentine, Pieper, Lynch, Kaisand) 8:50.53; 3. GC (Sager, Saak, Venenga, Day) 8:57.16. Shuttle hurdle – 1. GC (Hoy, Koch, Gordon, Ascher) 1:07.49; 4. BCLUW (Leimbacher, C. Gallentine, Garber, Curl) 1:18.85. Sprint medley – 1. GC (Zinkula, Opheim, Jansen, Knaack) 1:39.52; 2. BCLUW (Bracy, Hoffman, Hughes, Lynch) 1:41.06. Distance medley – 1. BCLUW (Bracy, Hughes, Curl, Kaisand) 3:56.26; 2. GC (Laube, Feliciano, Jirovsky, Sadler) 3:59.00.
