May 24, 2008 - 04:06:02 CDT
Before Friday, Seth Wisthoff never thought that he would be mentioned in the same breath with Jim Kleinsasser, the former Carrington athletic star and current professional football player.He is now.
The Glenburn senior flung the discus 183-11 on the first day of the state track and field meet to tie Kleinsasser's Class B boys state record.
Kleinsasser set the mark in 1995 in his last state meet. He went on to play football at the University of North Dakota and has spent the last nine seasons with the Minnesota Vikings.
"To share space in the record book with (Kleinsasser) ... that's pretty sweet," said Wisthoff, whose previous personal-best throw was a 174-8. "We were just looking at (the record) this week and wondered if it was possible. My best throw coming in was about 9 feet short of it, so the odds weren't really in my favor. But it happened. What I'm feeling now is pretty hard to describe."
Wisthoff's winning effort at the Bismarck Community Bowl came on his second throw of the final round. He admitted that he might have had some divine help.
"I prayed before I stepped into the ring. I just said, 'Help me, Jesus,' and I guess he did," said Wisthoff, whose best throw of the preliminaries was a 165-8. "It's funny because when I let it go, it didn't feel as good as some of my other throws. But I got it up in the wind and that helped it along."
Wisthoff, who also had a 182-3 in the finals, won the discus state title last year with a then personal-best throw of 158-11. This year, he topped the 160-foot mark for the first time in late April, and got past 170 feet May 2.
"I remember how excited I was when I got 160," Wisthoff said. "A 180? That was way beyond what I expected. I was careful about how I set my goals this year. I didn't want to set them too high or too low. All I wanted to do was improve every week."
Wisthoff will go after his second straight state title in the shot put today. And he has his sights set on another Kleinsasser state mark - 62-2, also in 1995. Wisthoff's season best is a 60-4.
"I'm less than two feet away from that one," Wisthoff said. "I can hardly wait to go after it. I'm pretty pumped right now."
Rugby's Bryant Halvorson made his state meet debut Friday. And what a debut it was.
The junior, who hadn't competed in field events until this year, sailed 22-6½ in the long jump to win his first state title.
Halvorson, the No. 1 seed with a 22-1, missed all of 2007 because of hamstring problems. When he returned this spring, his coaches encouraged him to try the long jump and triple jump.
"I was mostly in the sprints, but my coaches thought I had the potential to do well in the jumps," Halvorson said. "I guess they knew what they were talking about. But to do this good? It's unbelievable."
Earlier, Halvorson's teammate, Dylan Yoder, ran to victory in the 1,600. Yoder, a sophomore and the No. 3 seed coming in, posted a winning time of 4:35.84. He finished 3.43 seconds ahead of second-place Jeremy Grinnell of New Town.
Yoder came in sixth in last year's 1,600.
"I put in a lot of miles in the offseason," he said. "All of that hard work paid off."
Justin Overby of Langdon-Munich picked a great day to post his best effort in the pole vault.
The senior vaulted 12-9 to win that event for the first time. Overby, whose previous best effort at the state meet was an 11-6, was tied with four other vaulters at 12-6, but was the only one to clear the bar at 12-9. If he hadn't, he would have finished third or fourth.
"That's how it would have panned out, so to win I had to at least make that height," Overby said. "I never made that before. I tried all year and it never happened. It happened at the right time."
New Town finished off the first day with a win in the 3,200-meter relay. Justin Grinnell, Josh Kirkaldie, Jeremy Grinnell and Timm Szczur covered the distance in 8:30.77.
In the preliminaries, Brian Sorensen of Hazen posted the fastest times in the 200 (22.18) and 400 (50.66). Deland Weyrauch of Williams County was the first to finish in the 100 (10.89). Blaise Kautzman of Mott-Regent and Scott Roemmich of Bottineau had the best times in the 110 hurdles (15.16) and the 300 hurdles (40.63), respectively.
Rugby led after Friday's action with 27 points. New Town followed with 23.
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