Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – Tom Johnson invested a lot of time, effort and energy into offseason training leading up to his junior track season last spring.

Johnson had to wait a little longer than he would have preferred for his investment to pay out but the Clear Creek Amana senior is already seeing the dividends of his diligence this season.

After having his anticipated junior season lost, a casualty of the pandemic, Johnson is making up for lost time on the track this season.

Johnson continued a strong start to the season with a pair of gold medal performances at the Clear Creek Amana Invitational Thursday on a cool and overcast evening at Clipper Field.

“I worked harder than ever between my sophomore and junior year and to not be able to see that pay off on the track it was definitely tough,” Johnson said. “It makes it feel that much better now that we are getting out here.”

Johnson won the 800 and anchored the Clear Creek Amana sprint medley relay team to a win as the Clippers won five events at their own home meet that didn’t feature team scoring.

Alex Figueroa won the 100 and Brandon Barker won the 1,600 for the Clippers which also won a title in the shuttle hurdle relay.

Clear Creek Amana added four runner-up finishes and was third in four other events giving the Clippers a top-three finish in 11 different events.

“I’m pleasantly surprised with the results so far, I really wasn’t anticipating us to be here now, I thought there would be some growing pains with not competing for 22 months,” Clear Creek Amana coach Ben Robison said. “We’ve done a phenomenal job of putting the pieces so far and now it’s just going to be kind of a chess game later as to where we are going to actually put them.”

Johnson has been a big part of the early season success for the Clippers that includes a team title at the Waverly-Shell Rock Invite last week.

Robison credits Johnson’s senior season success to the work he put in during the offseason – both before the ultimately cancelled 2020 season and this season.

“I’m really jacked with where he is at right now and I’m really proud of the work that he did to get here,” Robison said of Johnson. “He’s reaping the benefits of it right now.”

That work continued to pay dividends on Thursday as Johnson cruised to the title in the 800 in a time of 2:02.36, more than nine seconds faster than runner-up Jake Opitz of Cedar Rapids Prairie.

“I’d say I was happy with the 800,” Johnson said. “I want to run one when I am fresh to see where I am truly at in that open 800 because I feel like I can definitely get down below that two-minute mark but I was definitely happy with tonight.”
On a night where Robison tinkered with his lineup Johnson got a chance at a new event as Clear Creek Amana loaded up its 800-meter sprint medley team.

With Johnson running the 400-meter anchor leg the Clippers won in a time of 1:35.58, the fastest time in Class 3A this season edging the 1:35.98 run by Benton Community on Tuesday.

“I have never run that in my life and I was pleasantly surprised with how that went,” Johnson said. “That was exciting I loved it. The 400 is definitely easier so I’ll say that’s why I enjoyed it but it was also really fun to run a fresh 400 and see where I was at.”

Harrison Rosenberg and Figueroa ran the two 100-meter legs and junior Gage Freeman carried the 200-meters before handing off to Johnson as Clear Creek Amana finish more than a second in front of Benton Community.

“Tom is an animal,” Robison said. “He gets after it all the time, we can always count on him to be out there and laying it all out there.”

It was a two-win night for both Figueroa and Rosenberg along with Johnson.

Figueroa won the 100 in 11.56 while Rosenberg joined Zaid Rachman, Andrew Schlemme and Ben Swails on the shuttle hurdle relay team that won in 1:04.1

“I haven’t been blessed with great weather for the 100 so I’m not really happy with my times but that’s something I can’t worry about now,” Figueroa said. “Last week was really cold and tonight there was a headwind but there is nothing you can do about that.”

Rosenberg was runner-up in the 110 hurdles in 15.17, Gavin Zillyette was runner-up in the 400 hurdles clocking a 59.08 in his first ever attempt in the event.

“I thought we competed really well tonight,” Robison said. “I like these non-scored meets because it gives us a chance to try some things that we wouldn’t normally do and see where we are at in the stuff and gives us a great look at where we are at going into a scored meet.”

Brandon Barker won the 1,600 in 4:39.71 and teammate Peyton Stadler was runner-up in 5:00.06.

“I was thrilled with Brandon’s 3,200 last week and his mile tonight was phenomenal,” Robison said. “I’m really excited about where we are at.”

Clear Creek Amana Invitational

At Tiffin

Individual results (Event winners; area placers)

Long jump – 1. Nathan Moore (Dike-New Hartford) 20-6; 3. Ben Swails (Clear Creek Amana) 20-3; 4. Joshua Loren (Clear Creek Amana) 20-1 ¾

High jump – 1. CJ Rickels (Vinton-Shellsburg) 6-1; 3. Joshua Loren (Clear Creek Amana) 5-10; 5. Daniel Robinson (West High) 5-6; 7. Jackson Schmidt (Clear Creek Amana) 5-4

Discus – 1. Nolan McLean (Anamosa) 149-2

Shot put – 1. Luke Peters (Williamsburg) 47-6; 3. Mason Applegate (West High) 45-2

100 – 1. Alex Figueroa (Clear Creek Amana) 11.56; 2. Blake Timmons (Solon) 11.82; 4. Gage Freeman (Clear Creek Amana) 12.06; 5. Trin Eidahl (Solon) 12.11

200 – 1. Ky Kaufmann (Anamosa) 23.45; 3. Gage Freeman (Clear Creek Amana) 23.65; 6. Ben Swails (Clear Creek Amana) 24.49

400 – 1. Tristan Weers (Anamosa) 52.25

800 – 1. Tom Johnson (Clear Creek Amana) 2:02.36; 6. Mohan Kumar (West High) 2:18.12; 7. Andrew Dong (West High) 2:18.76;

1,600 – 1. Brandon Barker (Clear Creek Amana) 4:39.71; 2. Peyton Stadler (Clear Creek Amana) 5:00.06; 6. James Dickens (West High) 5:15.41

3,200 – 1. Hunter Kalous (Cedar Rapids Prairie) 10:16.97; 5. Mohan Kumar (West High) 11:00.71; 7. Robert Strong (West High) 11:07.1; 8. Jackson Schloss (Clear Creek Amana) 11:17.5

110 hurdles – 1. Ceondae Adams (Cedar Rapids Prairie) 14.75; 2. Harrison Rosenberg (Clear Creek Amana) 15.17; 7. Brady Mullen (Solon) 17.28; 8. Clay Bopp (West High) 17.42

400 hurdles – 1. Michael Guckerberger (Cedar Rapids Prairie) 56.76; 2. Gavin Zillyette (Clear Creek Amana) 59.08; 8. Clay Bopp (West High) 1:01.84

Shuttle hurdle relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Ben Swails, Andrew Schlemme, Harrison Rosenberg, Zaid Rachman) 1:04.1; 6. West High (Aiden Behounek, Clay Bopp, Anuj Jani, Tai’Zaun Thomas) 1:14.83

Sprint medley relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Harrison Rosenberg, Alex Figueroa, Gage Freeman, Tom Johnson) 1:35.58; 4. Solon (Trin Eidahl, Colton Hoffman, Grant Gerdin, Ben DeValk) 1:41.46

Distance medley relay – 1. Benton Community 3:43.13; 2. Clear Creek Amana (Ethan Pegump, Nate Beckmann, Cash Jensen, Gavin Zillyette) 3:46.54; 5. Solon (Danny Knezevich, Parker Pentico, Ty Becicka, Tyler Bilskie) 3:56.35

4×100 relay – 1. Anamosa 45.73; 3. Solon (Brady Mullen, Jacob Timmons, Danny Knezevich, Blake Timmons) 46.43; 5. Clear Creek Amana (Ethan Pegump, Thomas Dunn, Reece Hoffman, Nate Beckmann) 47.24; 7. West High (Ivan Bryson, Barry Diallo, Daniel Robinson, Bryan Torres) 47.77

4×200 relay – 1. Cedar Rapids Prairie 1:31.48; 4. Solon (Trin Eidahl, Oliver Burns, Grant Gerdin, Brady Jeworrek) 1:36.97; 7. Clear Creek Amana (Ethan Pegump, Nate Beckmann, Andrew Schlemme, Reece Hoffman) 1:39.74

4×400 relay – 1. Dike-New Hartford 3:3.63; 3. Clear Creek Amana (Tom Johnson, Gavin Zillyette, Cash Jensen, Keyan Gisleson) 3:34.49; 5. Solon (Blake Timmons, Ben DeValk, Tyler Bilskie, Brayden Rickertsen) 3:37.32

4×800 relay – 1. Cedar Rapids Prairie 8:10.86; 3. Clear Creek Amana (Keyan Gisleson, Cameron Kimm, Brandon Barker, Peyton Stadler) 8:54.52; 7. West High (James Dickens, Andrew Dong, Bongain Mazibo, Zach Buchholz) 9:32.18

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