Boys Track & Field: Living up to weighty expectations

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The Rosemount boys track and field team and coach Jay Hatleli are handling increased expectations rather easily.

The Irish are enjoying the spotlight that has come with their recent success, which included a state championship last season.

“It changes from season to season,” Hatleli said. “Lately, expectations have been higher and higher. It’s fun. No one is complaining about that. It makes it that much more exciting.

“We used to go to the state meet with a couple of kids. Now when we go, we have kids in every event.”

Expectations certainly won’t decrease heading into next season after the Irish placed third overall as a team at last week’s Class 2A state meet at Hamline University.

Rosemount scored 49 team points. Buffalo won the team title with 60 points and Wayzata was second with 52.

The Irish had nine athletes compete and tallied four second place finishes.

“We were happy to see our outgoing seniors, kids who have been so important to us, perform their best,” Hatleli said.

Senior Chris Massey started the meet for the Irish with a personal-best time of 9 minutes, 19.36 seconds in the 3,200-meter race, finishing second.

“He worked very hard and deserves every bit of success he had this year,” Hatleli said.

Senior Austin Eliason placed seventh in the 200, and broke the school record with a time of 21.92 seconds in the preliminaries.

Junior Zach Vraa finished second in the 110 high hurdles, the highest finish for an underclassmen in the event. Vraa had a personal-best 14.79-second time in the preliminaries.

“We’ve kind of accumulated a lot of second-place finishes the last few years,” Hatleli said.

Senior Christian Willman had a personal best, placing fourth in the 400 in 49.55 seconds.

Eliason, Vraa and Willman teamed with Andrew Anderson in the 4x200 relay to finish second.

Goaner Deng, Anderson, Andrew Hausmann and Willman combined to place second in the 4x400 relay.

“There is nothing to be ashamed finishing second in the relays,” Hatleli said. “Those guys will never be satisfied. They wanted to win. They’re happy, but deep down you know they wanted to win.”

Ninth grader Chandler Dye placed 11th in the 800, behind only four other underclassmen.

Sophomore Brandt Berghuis finished 13th in the shot put. Only five underclassmen had a better distance than Berghuis, and only three were sophomores or younger.

“There aren’t many sophomores that go to state in the shot put because it’s a strength event,” Hatleli said.

Of course, setting expectations high is nothing new for the Irish.

Tags: track and field, sports