By John RittenhouseTwo Luverne High School boys will compete in state competition after performing well at the Section 3A Track and Field Championships in Montevideo Thursday.Senior Marcus Walgrave and junior Tyler Elbers both won section titles during the meet.Section champion relay teams, first- and second-place-finishing individuals and individuals or relay teams that meet the state-qualifying standards in place for the section meet advance to the state meet.A number of other LHS athletes made bids to gain berths in the state meet, but Walgrave and Elbers are the ones who got the job done.Walgrave was a double-qualifier as a hurdler.He took top honors in the 110-meter event with a time of 15.41 before finishing second in the 300-meter hurdles in 39.62. Walgrave was two-one hundredths of one second behind the section champion in the 300.Elbers won his section championship in the high jump when he matched his personal best effort of clearing 6-3.Walgrave and Elbers will compete at the Minnesota State Class A Track and Field Championships at the National Sports Center in Blaine Friday and Saturday.Elbers will compete in the high jump at 9 a.m. Saturday. Walgrave will compete in Friday’s preliminaries, which are scheduled to start at 3 p.m. The 110-meter preliminaries are the fourth event of the day, and the 300-meter preliminaries are the 14th event. The 110-meter finals are set for 11:07 a.m. Saturday, with the 300 finals slated for 2:07 p.m.With Elbers and Walgrave leading the way, the Cardinal boys scored 77 points as a team and placed third at the section meet. Montevideo (114) and Redwood Valley (89) outscored the Cards.Luverne’s 800-meter relay team missed qualifying for state by one place, as did Justin Van Wyhe, Ruston Aaker and Scott Goebel in individual competition.Elbers, Tim Rust, Chris Morgan and Andrew Hulstein, who placed fourth in the 400-meter relay in 45.57, finished second in the 800-meter event with a time of 1:33.54. They missed the state-qualifying standard of 1:33.24 by three-tenths of a second.Van Wyhe placed third in the triple jump with a distance of 41-8, Aaker was third in the 400-meter dash in 52.27 and Goebel was third in the 1,600-meter run in 4:44.08.Hulstein and Rust placed fifth in individual events for LHS, while Nick Otten landed a seventh-place performance.Hulstein cleared 5-11 in the high jump to place fifth, and Rust cleared 11-6 to place fifth in the pole vault. Otten ran 3,200 meters in 10:56.54 to place seventh.Luverne also placed in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter relays.Jake Hendricks, Goebel, Kyle Bitterman and Aaker finished fourth in the 1,600 in 3:35.74. Hendricks, Bitterman, Otten and Aaker placed sixth in the 3,200 in 9:01.14.
