Hornets rally around double state entrant Rylee Moore and record relay team 

By Robert Williams

Editor

The Frazee girls track and field team returns an experienced group from last season’s Subsection 30 championship team, including the entire school record holding 4x400m team and senior standout Rylee Moore.

Moore was a fifth place Class A state high jumper in 2021 and finished seventh at state in the triple jump. Moore and fellow senior Braylee Riewer will captain head coach Jim Jacobson’s squad.

Jacobson is in his 12th season with Hornet track along with boys head coach Brian Tangen and assistants Jim Rader, Jeff Johanssen, Russ Hackel and Todd Larson.

“We return the majority of our letter winners in most of our events,” said Jacobson. “Our girls work hard to push each other in practice and we have already seen some great things this season.”

With the senior duo of Moore and Riewer in leadership roles, it is a group of underclassmen that made a name for themselves last season and are under Jacobson’s watch to continue to build on that success in 2022.

Sophomores Elsie Ratz and Hailey Selly, along with eighth-graders Brynn Larson and Jayden Sonnenberg, are back looking to better their school-record 4×400. The group is nearly half of the nine returning starters and letter winners from last year.

Completing that list of letter winners are juniors Autumn Hiemenz, Kaidence Mayfield and Olivia Petron, giving Jacobson’s squad leadership groups in multiple graduating classes from the captains on down.

One key loss in the lineup to fill will be Ellie Reierson, a 2021 signee to play collegiate volleyball for head coach Lindsey Johnson at Mayville State University. Reierson was a three-sport athlete for the Hornets.

Frazee captured the Subsection title last season by a five-point margin over Barnesville and went on to place fifth overall at the Section 8A championships in a field of 26 teams.

This season, the Hornets picked up a victory in the first indoor meet of the season besting a field of 26 teams at the Little Amik Invitational at Bemidji State University Tuesday, March 29.

The Hornets placed first by two points scoring 86 team points to runners-up Bemidji’s 84.

Moore and Petron captured individual victories. Moore was the lone high jumper to clear five-feet to earn the win. Petron was the long jump winner with a leap of 15-feet, 5.25 inches.

Moore added a runner-up finish in the triple jump at 32-feet even, finishing behind only West Marshall Fusion’s Hannah Pederson (33-11). Frazee had three triple jump finishes in the top six with a fifth place effort from Mayfield (30-10) and a sixth place jump by Selly (30-06.50).

The 4×400 team (Mayfield, Ratz, Larson, Selly) opened their season with a first place time of 4:23.80.

Little Amik Invite, Bemidji State University

Girls Team scores (top 10 of 26):

Frazee 86, Bemidji 84, Hibbing 65, Park Rapids Area 58, Bagley/Fosston 50, Fertile-Beltrami 30, Grand Rapids 27, Pillager 25, Wadena-Deer Creek 22, Pequot Lakes 20, International Falls 20. 

Frazee top 10 individual finishes:

200 meter dash

8. Haley Selly 28.81

800m run

6. Elsie Ratz 2:40.61

3,200m run

5. Bailey Larsen 15:31.52

60m hurdles

4. Kaidence Mayfield 10.68

5. Olivia Petron 10.68

4x200m relay

2. Frazee (Moore, Selly, Sonnenberg, Larson) 1:56.40

9 Frazee B (Hiemenz, Petron, Jacobson, Mayfield) 2:00.22

4x400m relay

1 Frazee (Mayfield, Ratz, Larson, Selly) 4:23.80

High jump

1. Rylee Moore 5-00

4. Brynn Larson 4-10

T9 Jayden Sonnenberg 4-03

Pole Vault

T10 Elsie Ratz 7-00

Long jump

1. Olivia Petron 15-05.25

Triple jump

2. Rylee Moore 32-00

5 Kaidence Mayfield 30-10

6. Hailey Selly 30-06.50