REGIONAL- It was a short trip for the Ely and North Woods athletes who qualified for the Class A state championship meet at St. Michael-Albertville High School last week, with all completing their action on Thursday of the two-day event.
Nineteen of the state’s small-school best lined up for the girls 400 meters, with Ely’s Violet Udovich rated at 18th in the field. When the preliminaries were over, Udovich had improved her place in the field to 14th with a 1:01.82 but fell short of qualifying for Friday’s finals.
In the 4x400 meter relay, the Ely foursome of Lydia Schultz, Sarah Visser, Grace LaTourell and Udovich came in with the slowest time among the 17 teams competing, but they edged their way up to 15th with a time of 4:17.56. Only the top nine moved on to the finals.
North Woods distance specialist Alex Burckhardt qualified for the 3200 meters running for the South Ridge Panthers and was rated 17th among the 17 entrants. Burckhardt managed to step up one rung on the ladder with a 16th place finish in 10:34.40.