Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

INDEPENDENCE – No matter which way he scored out the meet on paper Clear Creek Amana coach Ben Robison kept coming up with the same conclusion leading up to the WAMAC Conference championship.

Robison knew his team had a chance but expected it would be close.

Clear Creek Amana blew away its head coaches’ projections and the rest of the WAMAC field while claiming the first conference track and field title in program history on Thursday in Independence.

The Clippers won eight events and finished runner-up in two others while finishing with 144 team points to outdistance runner-up Marion by 25 points while Solon was third with 105 points.

“I don’t know if there is a place that we could have done better than we did and I mean that sincerely,” Robison said. “We nickel and dimed where we needed to and relays were our bread and butter. We had a great night.”

Everyone, including Robison, expected the team race to come down to a few points.

Point projections off regular season performances gave the edge to Marion by the slimmest of margins.

Clear Creek Amana blew it all up on Thursday.

“That definitely shattered our expectations,” Clear Creek Amana senior Tom Johnson said of the 25-point win. “We were expecting to run that 4×400 and that for be for the win so it was nice to have a lot of pressure taken off and it especially feels to win by that much in such a strong conference.”

Clear Creek Amana got individual titles from Johnson in the 800, Gavin Zillyette in the 400 hurdles and Harrison Rosenberg in the 110 hurdles.

It was in the relays where the Clippers flexed their muscle.

Johnson anchored the Clippers to wins in the sprint medley, distance medley and 4×400 in a four-win night and the Clippers added titles in the shuttle hurdle and 4×100.

“To win a conference championship for coach (Robison), that’s what all of us wanted because he deserves it more than any coach in the WAMAC,” Johnson said. “He’s the best coach. He has built this program from the bottom up and is really excited to see us improve year after year and I know this was a dream of his.”

Clear Creek Amana started strong on the track with a win in the sprint medley relay, a runner-up finish in the 4×800 relay and a title in the shuttle hurdle.

It was in the middle of the meet where the Clippers began to build their lead.

Rosenberg cruised to a title in the 110 hurdles, winning by more than a second with a time of 15.24 and Johnson followed with a win in the 800 in 2:01.83.

“I felt so good today,” Rosenberg said. “The shuttle was awesome, our sprint med we had a great comeback with Tom Johnson on the anchor and in the high hurdles I just felt awesome.”

The Clippers could feel they were closing in on the title when Zillyette used a strong close over the final 30 meters to catch Benton Community junior Colin Buch and win the 400 hurdles in 56.27.

“This is all grit,” Robison said. “We don’t have a lot of freaks but we are deep where we need to be and we take care of businesses in other places.”

Keyan Gisleson was fourth in the 400 hurdles, one of five individual events in which the Clippers double scored.

Clear Creek Amana had top-five finishes all but four events on Thursday including 9-of-12 individual events.

“What won us the meet tonight was the sixths and sevenths and eighths that we got,” Robison said. “We just talked about compete, compete, compete and score points when you can and they did exactly that.”

The exclamation point on the first title in program history came in the final two events.

Clear Creek Amana’s foursome of Rosenberg, Ben Swails, Gage Freeman and Alex Figueroa won the 4×100 in 43.79.

Johnson then surpassed two runners in the final 200 meters as the Clipper 4×400 relay team of Zillyette, Cash Jensen, Gisleson and Johnson won in 3:29.

“We’ve known since the first meet,” Johnson said. “We came out the first meet and just shattered our expectations in every event and I think it shocked everybody to know we are such a good team. We’ve been talking about it since last week that we knew we could win it but we didn’t expect by this much.”

Solon didn’t win an event but finished in the top five in all seven relays during a strong showing that ended with a third-place team finish.

The Spartans had four individual runner-up finishes and were second in the 4×200 relay.

Zach Harp was runner-up in the discus (146-7) and third in the shot put (50-6) while Brady Mullen runner-up in the 110 hurdles (16.34) and Brayden Rickertsen was runner-up in the 400 (51.6).

Colton Hoffman was runner-up in the high jump (6-0) and anchored the Spartan 4×200 relay team to a second-place finish.

WAMAC Conference Meet

At Independence  

Team scores – 1. Clear Creek Amana 144; 2. Marion 119; 3. Solon 105; 4. Benton Community 77; 5. Center Point-Urbana 58; 6. Mount Vernon 50; 7. Independence 47; 8. West Delaware 33; 9. Williamsburg 26; 10. South Tama 24; 11. Dyersville Beckman 20; 12. Vinton-Shellsburg 19; 13. Maquoketa 13

Individual event winners; area placers

Long jump – 1. Payton Vest (ST) 20-9 ¾; 4. Ben Swails (CCA) 19-5 ¾; 6. Joshua Loren (CCA) 18-9;

High jump – 1. Derek Weisskopf (WIL) 6-1; 2. Colton Hoffman (SOL) 6-0; 4. Joshua Loren (CCA) 5-8; 6. Oaken Foster (SOL) 5-8

Discus – 1. Jake Sidles (IND) 152-2; 2. Zach Harp (SOL) 146-7; 3. Garret Wagner (MAR) 140-7 ½

Shot put – 1. Garret Wagner (MAR) 54-2; 3. Zach Harp (SOL) 50-6

100 – 1. Alex Mota (MAR) 11.34; 2. Alex Figueroa (CCA) 11.35; 6. Colton Hoffman (SOL) 11.66

200 – 1. Jacob Brecht (BC) 22.49; 3. Alex Figueroa (CCA) 22.99; 5. Gage Freeman (CCA) 23.59; 6. Blake Timmons (SOL) 23.7

400 – 1. Alex Mota (MAR) 51.57; 2. Brayden Rickertsen (SOL) 51.6; 6. Cash Jensen (CCA) 53.05; 8. Keyan Gisleson (CCA) 53.13

800 – 1. Tom Johnson (CCA) 2:01.83; 4. Ben DeValk (SOL) 2:04.71; 5. Tyler Bilskie (SOL) 2:08.35

1,600 – 1. Eli Larson (CP-U) 4:31.29; 4. Ben DeValk (SOL) 4:40.99; 5. Brandon Barker (CCA) 4:44.79

3,2000 – 1. Shane Erb (MAR) 9:36.17; 4. Brandon Barker (CCA) 9:58.23;

110 hurdles – 1. Harrison Rosenberg (CCA) 15.24; 2. Brady Mullen (SOL) 16.34; 5. Andrew Schlemme (CCA) 16.97; 6. Brady Jeworrek (SOL) 16.98

400 hurdles – 1. Gavin Zillyette (CCA) 56.27; 4. Keyan Gisleson (CCA) 58.62

Shuttle hurdle relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Ben Swails, Andrew Schlemme, Zaid Rachman, Harrison Rosenberg) 1:03.22; 4. Solon (Jackson Ryan, Brady Mullen, Nash Kotar, Brady Jeworrek) 1:06.89

Sprint medley relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Harrison Rosenberg, Alex Figueroa, Gage Freeman, Tom Johnson) 1:36.32; 3. Solon (Trin Eidahl, Colton Hoffman, Brayden Rickertsen, Blake Timmons) 1:36.95

Distance medley relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Ben Swails, Gage Freeman, Gavin Zillyette, Tom Johnson) 3:44.62; 5. Solon (Sean Stahle, Michael Pipolo, Rhyse Wear, Michel Yeomans) 3:58.77

4×100 relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Harrison Rosenberg, Ben Swails, Gage Freeman, Alex Figueroa) 43.79; 4. Solon (Trin Eidahl, Danny Knezevich, Grant Gerdin, Brady Jeworrek) 45.54

4×200 relay – 1. Benton Community 1:32.14; 2. Solon (Blake Timmons, Trin Eidahl, Jacob Timmons, Colton Hoffman) 1:33.46; 6. Clear Creek Amana (Nick Johnson, Thomas Dunn, Ethan Pegump, Reece Hoffman) 1:35.06

4×400 relay – 1. Clear Creek Amana (Gavin Zillyette, Cash Jensen, Keyan Gisleson, Tom Johnson) 3:29; 3. Solon (Blake Timmons, Brayden Rickertsen, Bo Janssen, Jeremy Bachus) 3:32.27

4×800 relay – 1. Mount Vernon 8:26.74; 2. Clear Creek Amana (Gavin Zillyette, Cash Jensen, Peyton Stadler, Brandon Barker) 8:30.97; 3. Solon (Ben DeValk, Tyler Bilskie, Ty Becicka, Michael Yeomans) 8:34.62

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