Holy Family sports roundup
Track teams busy
A busy week for the Fire Boys and Girls Track and Field Teams concluded with two meets, a wealth of quality performances, school records, and a mass of honor roll standards attained.
The week began on May 6, when Holy Family played host to one of the True Team Section qualifying meets, with the top team moving on to the True Team State meet.
Moving up into the True Team AA Class for the first time, the Fire teams came up short of qualifying the teams for the True Team State Meet, but held their own against the larger schools, posting four event wins and eight Minnesota State A Honor Roll worthy performances.
Giving fuel to the Fire girls were sprinters Nikki Elliot and Katie Kemmerer, who finished 1-2 respectively in the 100-meter dash with Elliot’s time of 13.25 meeting the A Honor Roll standard. Kemmerer ran an honor-roll time in the 400 with 1:02.68.
Distance standout Lauren Rice had a pair of honor roll times, placing third in the 1,600 with 5:22.03 and was second in the 3,200 with 11:49.10. Not to be outdone, Brenna Wetsch also met the honor roll standard in the 3,200 with a personal best time of 12:01.20 for fifth place.
The throwers, sprinters, and distance runners led the charge for the Fire boys, who finished third in the 11-team field. Ryan Clark claimed top honors in the discus while teammate Tom Morton threw his way to top honors in the shot put.
Paul Weigel outran the field in the 1,600 with an honor-roll time of 4:38.04. Also meeting an Honor Roll standard was Matt Rassmussen, who took sixth in the 400 with 53.04.
Relay races capped the day of quality performances for the Fire boys as the 4x100 team claimed third place with 46.51, and the 4x800 team matched that third-place finish with a time of 8:34.01.
The week of competition finished with the Giant Relays at LeSueur-Henderson on Friday. A reduced-sized roster did not reduce the quality of the Fire performances.
Laura Wondra smashed her own Holy Family school record in the 300 hurdles by more than 2.5 seconds with her 49.9 clocking and second-place finish. This performance was also good enough to land Wondra her first ever Minnesota A Honor Roll Standard. Wondra also anchored the Girls 4x100 relay team of Elliot, Meghan Hemken and Kemmerer to a 51.26 time and an easy victory. The performance was not only an honor-roll standard, but it re-established the Fire 4x100 as one of the top teams in the state, while shattering the Giant Relays meet record by more than a full second.
On the boys’ side, sprinters and throwers led the Fire brigade. Morton lit the way with a second place throw in the shot put for the Fire while the boys’ 4x100 team narrowly missed the victory by less than one-tenth of a second. In a rare feat, the final second place showing for the Fire was
obtained by virtue of the ‘weight man’s relay,’ a 4x100 quartet comprised entirely of throwers.
The Fire will look to put all of these quality performances together next week in search of team titles, when they travel to Belle Plaine for the Minnesota River Conference Championship Meet this afternoon.
Baseball
Holy Family went 4-0 on the week. The Fire are now on a six game winning streak and tied for first place in the conference. Holy Family defeated Belle Plaine 8-2 and Norwood-Young America 7-5 in 9 innings early last week.
The streak set the stage for conference rival and then first place Jordan to come to Victoria. Holy Family wasted little time as they put up ten runs in the first inning on their way to a 13-2 victory in a five-inning game.
Saturday morning the team beat the rain and finished off former section foe St. Paul Academy 5-3.
The team's batting average for the week was .390. Eric Koehler hit .357 with two home-runs which both ended up to be game winning RBI's. Chris Campbell hit .400 on the week with 7 RBI. Brad Hallman hit .462 and Pat Balius hit .429. Pitching was the key this week. Holy Family had been struggling in this area to begin the year but has turned it on lately.
The Fire had a 1.50 E.R.A for the week. On the mound, Bennett Dragos picked up his first victory in a relief role vs. Norwood and first save of the year vs. St. Paul Academy. Dan Siering went the distance against Belle Plaine allowing 0 earned runs and Miles Campbell picked up the complete game win over Jordan.
Softball
The softball regular schedule is coming to an end after playing five games last week and with only one more conference game to go.
The Fire were an up and down team this past week as Chaska defeated the Fire 16-3, then Holy Family bounced back and defeated Belle Plaine 2-0. Coming back on Thursday afternoon, the Fire lost to Jordan 9-2 and then on Friday Holy Family salvaged the week with a double header victory
against Norwood Young America, winning both games 4-3 and 7-5.
Holy Family currently sits in second place in the conference with a record of 8-3. Playoffs begin for the Fire on Tuesday.
- Roundup courtesy of Patrick Boughton