• Willkomm excels at track

    By Preston Wiese

    On May 4, the Wildcat track and field team traveled to West Liberty for the conference meet. The Cats placed 11th out of the 13 teams there.

    One of the best individual finishes came from sophomore Jake Willkomm, who placed fifth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.34 seconds.

    While most athletes went out for track this year for the fun of running, others went out to try to improve in other sports.

    Willkomm joined track for his first year this year to try to build his speed up for the upcoming football season. In this upcoming season Jake hopes to become a wide receiver, and in order to do so, he knew he needed to increase his speed.

    “I went out for track to become faster for football, and I found out that I was a natural at track,” said Willkomm.

    Durant freshman Cameron Ruggiero also placed seventh overall in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.17 seconds. Junior Tristan Hughes wasn’t far behind in a time of 12.43 seconds placing him 10th overall.

    Most of the track team didn’t have a very good night with the long distance races except for Durant junior Easton Botkins who placed eighth overall in the 1600-meter run with a time of 4:55.46.

    In the 4x100-meter relay, Durant placed eighth, including Willkomm, Ruggiero, Marcus Engstler, and Cole Miedema. The 4x200-meter relay placed ninth, and the runners included Zac Badtram, Engstler, Jake Nietfeldt, and Ruggiero.

    In field events, Durant senior Ty Chenault placed sixth in the long jump with a leap of 18’-01.5”. Dawson Frett placed ninth in the shot put with a distance of 46’. His brother Cale Frett threw in the discus placing fifth overall with a distance of 138’-01”.