Track and field: Alexandria girls earn second at CLC Indoor Meet

ST. JOSEPH - Following a dominant weekend at the MAA Indoor Meet at Concordia College, the Alexandria girls track and field team had yet another strong showing Saturday at the Central Lakes Conference Indoor Meet at St. John’s University. This time, the Cardinals came in second, as the Rocori Spartans won by 13 points.

“Our goal this meet was to be courageous, compete hard, and I think we did that,” Alexandria head coach Meghan Orgeman said. “Early meets are all about learning and figuring out race strategy or things with your technique in the field events.”

Orgeman said meets like this aren’t necessarily solely about winning but rather are about learning and correcting habits and techniques.

“When you think about overall team results, we don't load our indoor conference meet,” Orgeman said. “We didn't have our strongest lineup. So I don't really look at team scores this early. In this conference meet, it is about learning and learning how to compete hard.”

Sam Stuve / Alexandria Echo Press

With this approach, the Cardinals' coaching staff tried not to put too much of a load on their shoulders in the second meet of the season.

This coincides with the Cardinals' goal of being focused on training in the early part of the season, rather than being focused on strictly winning.

“We're really big about training and we don't want to risk an athlete getting hurt in competition and load them up just so we can have an early-season win,” Orgeman said. “We want them to come back Monday and Tuesday and be able to get a really great training week. We may not be as aggressive in an early-season lineup, because we want to get our training in. So when I think about how our lineup wasn't extremely aggressive. I feel confident with what I saw today.”

The Cardinals limited distance runners to one event. This led to many different athletes getting on the track and getting the Cardinals some team points.

Alexandria scored 131 points with 11 top-five finishes.

Aleah Miller and Hailie Kent took top place finishes on Saturday, with Miller winning the 1600m run (5:14.00) by over 22 seconds and Kent winning the triple jump (35-06.00).

Miller and Kent, along with Ailynn Fettig and Emma Ecker, are the captains for this year’s team.

“They are unbelievable leaders,” Orgeman said. “They're incredible athletes. They lead by example through their intensity and their training. They really do look out for the younger kids. They look not just in their own little events, but they're looking across the track at everybody to encourage people, lift them up and lead by example.”

Fettig earned top-five finishes with a third-place finish on the pole vault (8-00), and a second-place finish in the 4x200 relay, along with Kent, Ella Steussy and Kaia Emter. Addison Fettig added a fifth-place finish in the 60-meter dash.

Kent’s other top-five finish was in the 60-meter dash where she placed fourth (8.36).

Ecker ran in the 4x800 relay with Layne Leimkuhl, Emma Hochhalter and Jaelyn Miller. They finished second with a time of 10:26.42.

Sophia Korynta finished third in the 60-meter hurdles (10.41). The 4x400 relay team of Miah Wessel, Marisa Rousu, Emma Ballou and Elena Fuglestad finished third (4:29.85).

1/5: Alexandria's Sophia Vinje throwing in the shot put event at the 2022 CLC Indoor Meet on April 2, 2022.

2/5: Alexandria's Giselle Jahner finished 3rd in the 800m run on at the CLC Indoor Meet on April 2, 2022.

3/5: Alexandria's Elise Maagard throwing in the shot put at the CLC Indoor Meet on April 2, 2022.

4/5: Alexandria's Brynn Cross running in the CLC Indoor Meet on April 2, 2022.

5/5: Alexandria's Bobbi Nichols running at the CLC Indoor Meet on April 2, 2022.

Rousu finished third in the 400-meter dash (1:05.56), while Fuglestad finished sixth (1:06.59) in that event as well as the 60m dash (8.47). Fuglestad and Rousu also had big performances in jumping with Rousu finishing third in the triple jump (32-5) and Fuglestad finishing fourth in the long jump (15-1.5).

Giselle Jahner earned third in the 800-meter run (2:34.77), while Brynn Kosters took fifth in the 3200-meter run (12:29.97) and Bobbi Nichols took sixth (13:05.51).

The Cardinals had another top two finish in the shot put from Amaria Sowada (35-2.50).

Rounding out the top-five finishes from the Cardinals, Bria Luepke finished fourth on the pole vault (7-6) and Ella Steussy finished fourth in the triple jump (32-0.5).

A solid group of freshmen have caught the eye of Orgeman early in the season.
“I would say today, Kasey Soderholm and Lydia Oldenkamp are some freshmen that stood out,” Orgeman said.

Soderholm finished sixth in the 1600-meter run (5:43.59).

“She’s fierce. She is a freshman that you kind of raise your eyes at and say, “Wow,”’ Orgeman said. “It's exciting to see how fearless she is when she competes.”

Lydia Oldenkamp placed 11th in the shot put (30-06.25) and showed off some versatility.

“We had a 4x4 girl that couldn't run because her back was sore and we had a girl from the shot put, Lydia Oldenkamp, who is a freshman, jump in,” Orgeman said. “I think Lydia Oldenkamp is another exciting freshman in the shot put area. The fact that she jumped into a 4x4 was pretty fun.”

Alexandria is slated to host a home meet on April 7 at 4 p.m.