Cedar boys claim a pair of track titles

HARTINGTON — It was quite the week for the Cedar Catholic Trojans in their own backyard and in Homer.

Cedar Catholic sophomore Carson Noecker inked his name in the school record book during the week.

The track teams did more than just show up as the boys finished first in both the Hartington-Newcastle Invitational on April 6 and then followed that up with the title at the Ivan Krumwiede Invitational three days later.

The Cedar boys scored 133 points to win in Hartington, while host Hartington-Newcastle had 84 and Wisner-Pilger was third with 76 points.

Carson Noecker won four gold medals on the day to lead Cedar. He earned the 800 (2:07.45), 1600 (4:30.05) and 3200 (9:39.01) and anchored Cedar Catholic to victory in the 3200 relay (9:00.82).

Carson Arens also had a good day winning the high jump (5-10) and running on both of the Trojans’ winning relays, 3200 and 1600 (3:50.85).

In Homer, Cedar garnered 150 team points to easily out-distance second-place Oakland-Craig and third place Lawton-Bronson.

Despite having a small contingent of competitors, the girls finished sixth at the Hartington meet and fourth at Homer.

“I really thought we were able to get a lot of balance out of our kids — both the boys and girls,” Cedar Catholic head coach Chad Cattau said.

The Cedar boys won the Hartingotn-Newcastle meet thanks to contributions from quite a few athletes.

“We had a lot of kids that were able to score in four events for us during the meet which really helped us score as well as we did,” Cattau said. “We must continue to improve ourselves each and every meet. We are really working on our mental toughness with this team, and many have really bought in the past couple of weeks.”

Cattau said some of the rust had to be worked out early in the season.

“Since we haven’t competed in track in two years, it has taken some of the kids a few weeks to get into shape for this sport and to realize how mentally challenging it can be, especially during some of our practices,” he said.

It was more of the same in Homer for Cattau’s crew.

“This meet is always a good challenge for our teams for a variety of reasons,” Cattau said. “It’s the first meet of the season where we go on the road, so the kids aren’t necessarily as comfortable with the surroundings and expectations of the meet. It’s also our first meet where we run prelims and finals in the sprint events so it can be a lot more grueling on their bodies because they have to perform certain events multiple times.”

Cattau said his squad had a lot of really good performances despite some tough weather conditions.

“Our sprint times are a little deceiving because the sprinters had to run everything into the wind because there was only one finish line camera at the meet. Because of that, many of their times didn’t improve from other meets, but we placed well so I know we were running very well.”

Carson Arens (boys high jump, 5-10), Easton Becker (boys pole vault, 11-06) and Owen Heimes (boys long jump, 20-01) brought home wins.

Blake Arens took second in the pole vault (11-06) while Alex Kuehn did so in the long jump (19-03.5)

Carson Arens added a third place in the triple jump (38-03.5) and Jaxson Bernecker (discus, 125-09) was bronze as well.

At Homer, Carson Noecker broke the school record in the 1,600 (4:38.34) and 3,200-meter (9:29.27) runs.

Laney Kathol paced the Lady Trojans by scoring in four events, including winning the high jump (5-00), 800-meters (2:30.51) and 400-meters (1:01.85) while running the winning leg of the 4x800 relay team. She also ran a leg of the second-place, 1,600-meter team (4:29.56).

“I just try to take it one meet at a time and see how I do,” Kathol said. “I am pretty proud of how I’ve done these first three meets that we’ve had. My first time doing the 800 was this week and I was two seconds away from breaking the record. So, I am just kind of winging it and seeing how it’s going.”

Other girls with top performances in Homer were Sophia Reifenrath (first, 100 meters, 14.34), Faith Christensen (first, 200 meters, 28.78; third, 100 meters, 14.50), the 4x100-relay (54.40) and Grace Reifenrath (second, 400 meters, 1:06.48).

The winning boys were spearheaded by Noecker (first, 800 meters, 2:09.19; first 1600 meters, 4:38.34; first, 3200 meters, 9:29.27), Alex Kuehn (first, 400 meters, 54.28), the 4x400 relay (first, 3:39.52), the 4x800 relay (first, 8:42.57), Carson Arens (first, high jump, 8:42.57), Blake Arens (first, pole vault, 10-06), Alex Kuehn (first, long jump, 19-06), Easton Becker (second, 200 meters, 25.06), Dagen Joachinsen (third, 800 meters, 2:11.93) and Brett Kleinschmit (third, triple jump, 37-00).

“I really believe that mental toughness is what ends up separating a lot of teams when you perform in less-than-ideal conditions or at times when your body just doesn’t feel like it can continue to compete at a high level,” Cattau said.

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