Boys Track: Tigers win All-American Invite

Tanner Grubb 3 first place finishes at River Falls (photo by Jim Lindquist)

Last year the Tiger boys took a limited number of athletes to the All-American Indoor Invitational at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and finished in 12th place.

Last Saturday they took a bigger group and thanks to some outstanding individual performances led the 18-team field with 70 points, 4.5 more than runner-up Hudson, Wisconsin.

"We were missing a few guys but had more varsity athletes than a majority of the teams that were on spring break," Tiger coach Brian Helmstetter said.

Wyatt Ferm won the high jump at 6-4

 "We were excited to be close enough in the end to compete for the championship, but the boys know this is only a step towards May and June. We will have a lot of work ahead of us the rest of the season."

Three of the biggest efforts of the day came from Tanner Grubb, Justin Hyytinen and Wyatt Ferm.

Grubb won the 400-meter dash in an indoor school record time of 50.9, less than a second off the school outdoor standard and also anchored the 4x200 and 4x400 relay teams to victory.

Mason Auge, Mason Gaylord and Jack Erickson joined Grubb for the 4x200 relay and Erickson, Hyytinen and Ryan Paco teamed up with him in winning the 4x400.

Justin Hyytinen ran school record 1600 meters

Hyytinen shattered his own indoor school record in the 1600-meter run with a 4:18.96 clocking, a time less than a second behind the school outdoor record set in 1983 by Roger Thelen.

Ferm, who  had a strong finish in the high jump last spring, claimed that event with a personal-best leap of 6-4.

The 4x800 relay quartet of Jared Wolt, Luis Rodriguez, Alex Hart and Devon Webb came in second.

Webb also took fifth place in the 800-meter run and Nehemiah Rockett ranked fifth in the 55-meter hurdles.

Gaylord placed sixth in the triple jump and Wolt was seventh in the 800-meter run. Parco ran eighth in the 400-meter dash and Jeff Guiterrez finished ninth in the 3200-meter run. Parco took tenth in the 200-meter dash as did the sprint medley foursome of Robin DeCastro, Caleb Bray, Rodriguez and Ryan Newton.