Homer High School girls track and field team received the state championship award last week and the boys came in fifth place. Many school records were broken at the meet and it’s the first time since 2016 for the team to receive a championship award. Homer coach Bob Ostrom said the team roster had 60 students on it and 35 qualified to compete at the state meet.
Though many of the athletes did very well on a personal level; Ostrom expressed the significance and emphasis of teamwork:
“Well, I think it was for me this the meet, was like a summation of the whole season, where we really pushed teamwork and team building, and that showed up in our relay results, where we won all the team relays, and that translated then into their individual events, doing well in those two but it was really a team building, focused season that showed off in the relays,” Ostrom said.
The girls received first place in all of the relay events: 4X100, 4X200, 4X400 and 4X800. Each relay team is composed of four runners, the second number of the event title is how many meters each person runs. The Homer boys received first place in the 4X800 event.
Coach Parsley noted that “at least one person scored in every single event at the meet on the girls side.”
The boys team scored fifth place with about three times the number of points that they received in 2024, Ostrom said.
Senior top athlete, Gracie Miotke, sprained her ankle at the regional meet and failed to qualify for what would typically be her two key events. Coaches explained that despite her inability to compete in some of her typical events, other team members helped pick up the score.
She did still get into one open 100 but we moved her into relays. The relays were already breaking the school records, so she helped. But it was really nice to see the depth of the freshman and sophomore and junior class that really picked up and did great, and we ended up not needing those points. It's pretty cool to see. It's kind of amazing when your top athlete doesn't qualify under two top like top two events, and we still win by 20 points. That's pretty cool, yeah, just in just the team, to show that resilience, to not break down when that happened. You know, that's their role model, the person on the team, they look up to, and then they're not there in their events. So to show that confidence and resilience in the team to just go out do well in their events anyway,” Ostrom said.
Another senior athlete was Brightly Thoning who competed with one of the relay teams, high jump and long jump. Bea McDonough, the final senior, was a member of two relay teams and the coaches noted that though her preliminary time in the 800 meter was one of “the best times of her career;” she did not qualify for the finals.
But then she didn't get down, she came back. Yeah, she was so resilient, and just was a huge part of the relays. Then, yeah, these kids, they didn't let any setbacks get them down. They just came through.
Another comment Ostrom provided:
“Another athlete I really just want to highlight, like Clara Booz, had a phenomenal series of races. I know, if you're looking at point values, she didn't rack up as many points as, say, Gracie or Molly or some of those other athletes, or Riley Sue, but there's just so much depth in the distance field, and she ran three incredibly smart races and put herself in a position to score the points that were needed in the distance realm. We kind of knew going in that we weren't going to rack up a ton of points on the distance side, but she did just enough to I mean, the 19 points scored by the distance team, or the difference between us getting that state championship or not,” Ostrom said.
Junior Booz placed fifth in the 1600 meters and fourth in the 3200 meters.
Ostrom returned to highlight the role of teamwork:
“Think another one thing we talked about was that this year was about team. Building that paid off with resilience and everything. One thing I noticed, too, we only have one other than the relays,one individual did so much with fourth, fifth and sixth points. Every race was just added up to make a huge difference. That's that's kind of impressive, too, that we only have that one. Usually we have to win two or three individual events. It was relays, and then the underclassmen and the folks getting the fourth, fifth and sixth place was huge. I mean, that, yeah, girls really began to realize, I mean, they realized early on how the puzzle pieces fit together and what role everyone plays to on the team. So using, I mean, yeah, Dayton, Clara, frankly, a lot of those kids, Maddie who finished fifth, fourth, fifth or sixth, like they understood that every place counted. That was cool to see,” Ostrom said.
Parsley and Ostrom described some of the features of the girls Sportsmanship Award. It is a team award according to vote.
We won the Sportsmanship Award, and the media official came to me afterwards, said that it was unanimous. They all of the meat officials vote on it, and our girls won by unanimous that. And she said they'd never seen it happen before, the throwing men, officials, the jumps officials, the people watching the line at the start and finish line, just everybody said that our girls were extremely sportsman like and voted for them…It's kind of nice to have both very talented athletes and very nice human beings. I think it goes hand in hand. They just have great character. They're hard working, they support each other, they're cheering each other on, they're respectful, they're hard working. Like yeah, wasn't a surprise, but pretty cool to hear that.
The boys team received first place in the 4X800 and were about five seconds off of the Homer school record. The team, runners Jai Badajos, Caleb Bunker, Tait Ostrom and Johannes Bynagle, have been running together for several years and have one year left together in Homer. Parsley says they’ll aim for a school record next year.
The coaches provided a few more comments on the boys team:
I think the boys team is where the girls team was last year or the year before. Great. As far as maturity and growth and like development, it's cool…So it's that team building again we're doing the boys side is starting to pay off too. Yeah, and they're a young team. They have potential.
The coaches mentioned a final feature that contributes to Homer’s success:
The last thing, like one thing that I think is also really contributed to the success as we've had a diverse group of coaches like we've got just a large coaching staff so we can offer more individual support to athletes and just the more positive adult role models that you have around the program. It just, it really helps. And great support, great parents.
Bob Ostrom received the coach of the year award and provided some comments on why other coaches may have voted for him.
“And I think that's really a reflection that they saw the changes and team building that we were doing too. It's more about your program and what's accomplished that year. So that was that's honor from even the other coaches in the region that they see what we're doing is working too,”
There will be a state championship celebration at Homer High School on Sunday June 8th at 4 p.m. that the public is welcome to attend.
