Esko Girls Win Section 7A True Team For The 5th Straight Year

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The Esko Only Girls Meet Results

May 13

Wes Vork-NSO

Two of the hardest things to accomplish in high school sports are domination and consistency. The Esko girls track team seems to have cornered the market on both. Tuesday in Holdingford the Eskomo girls won their fifth straight Section 7a True Team Track title.

True Team track meets are designed to show the overall depth and competitiveness of a program. Points are awarded all the way down to 20th place, with 20 points awarded to the winner and a single point to the 20th place finisher. Esko blew away the field by amassing 842.5 points to second place Holdingford’s 669 points.

In a testament to the overall depth and talent, the Eskomos finished in either first or second place in 14 of the 18 events. “When you can place in the top half, as the strong majority of our kids did, you will add up the points in a hurry. We averaged over 45 points per event.” Esko Head Girls Track Coach Tim Lindquist told Northland Sports Online.

Leading the talent laden pack for the Eskomos was Alyson Glumac, who finished in first place in all three of her individual events, the 100 meter dash, the 200 meter dash, and the triple jump. Glumac also anchored the 4×200 meter relay to a win and ran in the 4×100 meter relay that finished second by the slimmest of margins, posting a 53:08 to St. Johns Prep’s 53.07 seconds.

According to Lindquist, one of the keys to the Eskomos success on Tuesday was that no one had an off day. “All of the girls were near or at their best, which isn’t always the case, as you expect at least one to be a bit off.” Lindquist went on to add, “I also appreciated their focus when they had to deal with the warm, windy day. We haven’t had those temps/conditions often to work with this spring in meets or practice.”

Other first place finishers for the Eskomos on the day were Kate Shelerud in the 400 meter dash, defending state champ Marissa Shady in the 800 meters, Caitlin Lilly in the 300m hurdles and Janae Beaudot in the high jump.

With the section win, Esko punched its ticket to compete in the State True Team meet on May 21 in Stillwater. If logic has anything to do with, the Eskomos could return home as state champions. In the previous four trips to the state meet, Esko has yet to go backwards, finishing 6th in 2007, 3rd in 2008 and 2009, and 2nd last year.

In a very competitive boys side of the meet, Esko finished third. The Eskomos scored 671 points, closely behind second place Maple Lake with 673.5 overall points. Winning the boys event was Pillager with 692 points.

Wes Vork can be reached at wes@northlandsportsonline.com