On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the South Dakota State Track & Field competition was held at Howard Wood Field in Sioux Falls. Garretson sent seven of its athletes to the state competition, and showed plenty of grit and determination despite being a small team.
Senior Lily Ranschau captured the highest awards of the team, placing 2nd overall in the finals in the 100m dash. Ranschau’s finals race was run in 15.85 seconds, only slightly behind Silja Gunderson of Dakota Valley’s 15.42 seconds.
During the preliminaries, Ranschau broke the school record at 15.63 seconds, a record that had been placed by her mother, Meredith Rekstad, in 1998. Rekstad’s PR for the 100m hurdles was 15.5 seconds, according to the school website, but was not a fully automatic time (FAT), which is considered the gold standard.
Ranschau also ran the 300m hurdles at the state meet, but placed 9th in the preliminaries, eliminating her from the finals round. Ranchau does, however, hold the most recent school record for the 300m hurdles, placed in 2021 at 48.21 seconds. Rekstad continues to be the record holder for the 300m hurdles at 47.29 seconds (FAT).
Now finished with her high school career, Ranschau intends to head to Dakota Wesleyan in the fall to play volleyball and major in nursing.
Also competing in the state meet were Preston Bohl, Sam Schleuter, Collin Olson, Carter Siemonsma, Logan Bly, and Oliviyah Thornton.
Bohl, Schleuter, Olson, and Siemonsma were part of the 4x800 relay team, which placed 21st overall at the state meet with a time of 9:00.71. The only time they beat this score was at the region meet, where they placed 4th with a time of 8:58.47.
Bohl also ran the 1600 meter and 3200-meter races where he placed 16th with 4:42.97 and 11th with 10:11.13, respectively. Both of Bohl’s runs were a personal record for him.
Bly did not place in her event, the high jump. In 2021, she set the school record at 4’9” at regions and then beat it with a 5’0” at the state meet.
Senior Oliviyah Thornton competed at state in the shot put, throwing 35’6”. She placed 13th. While not hitting the PR of 36’10.5” she got at the 2021 state meet, this was still her furthest throw of the season. Thornton will be attending DSU in the fall and be participating on the track and field team for the Trojans. She will be majoring in criminal justice.
The overall winner of the shot put was Gracelyn Heiseth of Hamlin, who threw a record-shattering 52’06.75”.
