BANGOR — The 2015 track and field season ended for Hillsboro at last Friday’s WIAA Division 3 Bangor Sectional.
The Tigers qualified for sectionals in seven events, but none finished in the top four to advance to this week’s WIAA State Track and Field Championships that will be held Friday and Saturday at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
Sophomore Morgan Huntley was a two-event sectional qualifier in the shot put and discus.
She place ninth in the shot put with a personal-best toss of 32’8¼” and 12th in the discus with a throw of 86’8”.
Senior Michaela Bach was a three-event sectional qualifier. She capped her fine athletic career at Hillsboro with a 16th place finish in the girls’ 3,200 with a time of 14:03.83.
She also ran on Hillsboro’s 4x800 relay team with freshman Lydia Benish, junior April Thornsen and senior Shauna Parish that placed 10th with a time of 11:20.13. The same quartet won a conference title at the Scenic Bluffs Championships two weeks ago.
Bach, junior April Thornsen, and sophomores Belinda Griffin and Kailey Preuss teamed up to finish 14th in the 4x200 relay (1:59.85).
Parish finished 13th in the 800 at 2:50.20.
The 4x200 relay was the only sectional qualifier for Hillsboro boys.
Junior Adrian Marquez, sophomores Preston Kaus and Justin Muller, and freshman Riley Bolden placed 14th in the event at 1:43.24.
Neither Hillsboro team scored a point at sectionals.
Onalaska Luther won the boys’ sectional title with 58 points, 10 more than co-runner-up Boscobel (48) and Melrose–Mindoro (48).
Cuba City dominated the girls’ competition with 105.5 points. Benton/Scales Mound/Shullsburg finished second with 77 points.
“For the season as a whole, there were definitely areas of improvement for the athletes overall,” said Hillsboro head coach Chad Schmidt. “It is tough to be at the competitive level of some of the other schools with a very young team, but we should see team improvement next year.”
The Hillsboro track teams will lose eight seniors, including Bach, Parish, Macey Brown, Bridgett Madden, Adriana Reese, Avery Rueckheim, John Dank and Sebastian Miller.
Last Wednesday, Hillsboro competed at the WIAA Division 3 Onalaska Luther Regional.
The girls scored 53 points and placed sixth out of nine teams. The boys scored 30 points and finished seventh.
