Apollo Track & Field

Happy Holidays from our family to yours! We hope you stay warm and enjoy the time with your loved ones.

We have started our Winter Running Club and this year we do have a short distance group as well as a long distance group! All students are welcome to join and can join at anytime! We meet M-W-F from 3:30-5:15ish and have dress up themes each Friday! We have grown tremendously compared to prior years and it is a lot of fun! Today was ugly sweater day and ice bath hang out with light up floaties and food prior!

I have been a bit busy lately with getting the cross country team ready but a few awards have been announced over the last few days! The St Cloud Times announced their 2022 all metro teams for both boys and girls. Congrats to the following!

First Team All Metro
Noelle Hackenmueller
Tyler Hansen
Libby Lommel

Second Team All Metro
Andrew Karls
Brooke Verkinnes

Coming later this week will be athletes that finished top 100 in the state for their grade.

We had our 3rd Annual Sparkling Mile Challenge tonight! Participants have to drink 1 can of La Croix, run 400m and then drink another can. In total they drank 4 cans (48oz) of La Croix and ran a 1600m. Logan set a new race record with a time of 6:53 and Brooke set a new girls record with a 9:39. Thanks for coming alumni and current runners!

Some photos from the state meet!

After the conclusion of Day 1 of the MSHSL Class AA State Meet we have some hardware to bring home!

Noelle Hackenmueller finished 3rd place in the Long Jump with a jump of 17 feet 4.5 inches! Noelle also finished 9th in the 300 hurdle prelims and qualified for finals! She also just missed the 100 hurdle finals by 1 spot!

Tyler Hansen finished 6th place in the triple jump with a leap of 42 feet 5.25 inches! Tyler had a heck of a meet and should be proud of his accomplishments!

Brooke Verkinnes finished 16th place in the 800m run and wraps up a stellar mid-distance career!

Noelle will compete in the triple jump at 9am and the 300 hurdle finals at 11:39 am.

Libby Lommel finally gets her time to shine by vaulting at 9am tomorrow!

Sandy Hackenmueller did a fabulous job capturing some of the special moments from the 2nd day of sections! You can find her photos at the link below!

https://www.hackenmueller.com/Apollo-HS-Sports/2022-Apollo-Track/Sections-Day-2/n-36XvNz/?fbclid=IwAR2_i1k9bZjrbADEUczhkRheJi_iWMrniGKcK2R177YD5gR_4wYM8xxByVo

Now that I finally have had a chance to catch my breath after sections and graduation... here is an update on how sections went!

The meet had a little bit of everything and kept the athletes, coaches, and parents on edge from start to finish! There were falls, runners battling all the way to the line, field event athletes showing how strong, and tight team races! The girls team race came down to the final event of the meet... Due to the ferocity and heart of the girls at the meet, we finished 2nd out of 12 teams and brought home a SWEET plaque. To make it all that more amazing is that we only had 17 girls competing in TOTAL!

We had some state qualifiers and many podium/medalists from the 2 days of the Section 5AA meet! The top 6 finishers received medals and top 8 made the podium! The top 2 finishers qualify for

State Qualifiers
Noelle Hackenmueller
2nd place 100m Hurdles
2nd place 300m Hurdles
1st Place Long Jump
2nd place Triple Jump

Pole Vault
2nd place Libby Lommel

800m Run
2nd place Brooke Verkinnes

Triple Jump
2nd place Tyler Hansen

Podium and Medalist below!

Girls 3200m Run
3rd Place and NEW SCHOOL RECORD Emily Gustafson

Boys 3200m Run
3rd Place Jackson Gerads
5th Place Malcolm Snowberg

Shot Put
6th Place Paige Knustleben
7th Place Breanna Stueve

High Jump
4th Place Sofia Fischer

800m Run
3rd Place Andrew Karls

4x200m Relay
8th Place
Isabel Trushenski
Ella Stanoch
Sophia Kowalkowski
Raquel Reed

8th Place
Yoseb Brewer
Elijah Doyamo
Bangaly Kaba
Ethan Knustleben

4x400
6th Place
Yoseb Brewer
Elijah Doyamo
Bangaly Kaba
Andrew Karls

Triple Jump
5th place Libby Lommel

Boys 1600m Run
6th place Silas Dinger
7th place Jackson Gerads

Girls 1600m Run
4th Place Emily Gustafson

Qualifying for finals tomorrow in the open races are:

Noelle Hackenmueller
100 hurdles
300 hurdles

Brooke Verkinnes
800m run

Andrew Karls
800m run

All relay races and the 1600m run will compete tomorrow as well as the following field events; girls pole vault, boys long jump, girls triple jump, boys high jump, girls shot put, and boys discus.

We had some awesome performances at the Central Lakes Conference Championships last night! If you finished top 3 in an individual race or top 2 in a relay, you made all conference. If you finished 4th-6th as an individual or 3rd-4th in a relay you made honorable mention. Listed below are our award winners and their place!

Noelle Hackenmueller
Conference Champion Long Jump (1st)
All Conference 100 Hurdles (2nd)
All Conference 300 Hurdles (2nd)
All Conference Triple Jump (3rd)

Andrew Karls
All Conference 800m Run (3rd)
Honorable Mention 4x200m Relay (4th)
Honorable Mention 4x400m Relay (4th)

Libby Lommel
All Conference Pole Vault (2nd)
Honorable Mention Triple Jump (5th)

Brooke Verkinnes
All Conference 800m Run (2nd)

Jackson Gerads
All Conference 3200m Run (2nd)

Emily Gustafson
All Conference 3200m Run (3rd)
*School Record*

Elijah Doyamo
Honorable Mention 4x200m Relay (4th)
Honorable Mention 4x400m Relay (4th)

Bangaly Kaba
Honorable Mention 4x200m Relay (4th)
Honorable Mention 4x400m Relay (4th)

Yoseb Brewer
Honorable Mention 4x200m Relay (4th)
Honorable Mention 4x400m Relay (4th)

Tyler Hansen
Honorable Mention Triple Jump (4th)

Zili Lenzner
Honorable Mention 1600m Run (5th)

Congrats Libby!

Senior spotlight on Apollo’s Libby Lommel!