Megan Hoffman And Mariah Thill Earn Podium Finishes At State Track Meet

Four representatives of the Turtle Lake Clayton girl’s track team made the trip to LaCrosse for the WIAA Division 3 State Track Meet held Friday and Saturday, June 2-3. Qualifying for the meet were Mariah Thill in the 300-meter hurdles, Megan Hoffman in the 800-meter run, and the 4 x 400-meter relay team of Taylor Andersen, Mackenzie Symbal, Mariah Thill and Megan Hoffman. Mariah Thill and Megan Hoffman finished in the top six in their event finals, earning a spot on the state track meet podium.

Mariah Thill was first up, competing in the 300-meter hurdles Friday afternoon. In a two heat race that featured 17 qualifiers, Mariah raced to a third place finish in the preliminaries in 46.58, behind second place Ava Washburn (46.18) of Webster and first place finisher Kendal Stingle (46.11) of Shioton. In Saturday’s finals Mariah bettered her preliminary time, finishing third in 46.13, behind winner Ava Washburn (44.51) and second place finisher Kendal Stingle (45.73). In the preliminaries Mariah set a new school record and then broke the record once again in the finals. Her original school record was 47.70.

Megan Hoffman followed for TC, competing along with 14 other athletes, in the 800-meter run. The 800-meter run was a timed, two-heat race. Megan finished the race in 2:16.61, good enough for sixth place finish in the finals and a spot on the podium. State champion was Autumn Michalski, Chequamegon, who finished in 2:12.13. Megan was only eight-one hundredths of a second from a fourth place finish.

The 4 x 400-meter relay preliminaries was the final event of Friday. With 16 teams entered, TC qualified with a Sectional winning time of 4:12.12. In the preliminaries TC ran into some stiff competition and finished 14th, failing to make the finals with a time of 4:14.54. Phillips captured the title on Saturday with a time of 4:03.23. Racing for TC was Taylor Andersen, Mackenzie Symbal, Mariah Thill and Megan Hoffman.