By John Rittenhouse
A Hills-Beaver Creek junior became the school's second individual state champion during the Minnesota State Class A Track and Field Championships in Blaine Friday and Saturday.
Brad Haak, a three-time state qualifier in the 800-meter run, proved the third time can the a charm when he won the Class A title at the National Sports Center in Blaine.
Haak, who ran the second best qualifying time while winning his heat in Friday’s preliminaries, led Saturday's championship race from start to finish to become the school’s first runner to win a state individual title.
Steve Esselink won the long jump title in 1999 to become H-BC's first individual champion at a state meet.
"It was pretty awesome," said Patriot coach Tom Goehle, of Haak’s championship performance. "He ran a great, smart race. He led the whole race, but he started to get some challengers with 300 meters to go. They stayed with Brad for a while, but he started to pull away in the final 200 meters and won by eight-tenths of a second. It just was Brad's day. He was going to run whatever it took to win a state championship."
In Haak's case, it took a school-record setting performance to win the state title in the 800.
After running a 1:57.03 to surpass the long-standing school record of 1:58.5 set by Durant Kruger in 1980 during Friday's preliminaries, Haak ran an even stronger race in the finals. He covered 800 meters in 1:57.03 to reset the H-BC standard for the second straight day.
Setting the school record was something Haak thought he could accomplish. Winning a state championship, however, was something the Patriot thought was out of reach.
"I knew I could get the school record," Haak said. "I was seven-tenths of one second off the school record last year, so I thought I could do it. Winning [the championship race] was a total surprise. The returning champion (Plainview's Jordan Barnes) was coming back, and he was having a pretty good season. My goals were to set the school record and contend for first place at state, but I knew that would be difficult. I was happy and surprised [when I won]."
Haak said having taken on the pressures of competing at state in the past helped him last weekend.
As a freshman, Haak was unable to advance past the preliminaries in his first state appearance. He made some adjustments as a sophomore, and they led to a fifth-place finish. Those two outings played a big part in Haak winning it all Saturday.
"I felt really good. I was relaxed and wasn't nervous like I had been at state the last two years. I credit experience and knowing how to run better for what happened," he said.
Haak's win in the 800 accounted for 12 of the 17.5 team points H-BC-Ellsworth scored while finishing 19th as a squad in the Class A field.
All in all, it was a pretty good weekend for the H-BC-E program.
"We had four boys competing in five events, and all four came home receiving all-state honors. That's pretty impressive. We had a great meet," Goehle said.
Seniors Chris Willers and Chris Fransman and sophomore Chris Reid joined Haak in Blaine.
Reid, H-BC-E's lone state participant in two events, placed in one event and didn’t make the finals in another.
While competing in the Class A long jump on Friday, Reid produced a season-best distance of 20-11 to place seventh overall.
Chisholm’s Marcus Barto was the champion with a distance of 22-3 1/2.
After competing in the long jump, Reid ran an 11.84 in the preliminaries of the 100-meter dash on Friday. Reid’s effort was the 16th best, leaving him out of Saturday’s finals. Morris Area's Chris Esterling won the state title with a time of 11.33.
Willers, a two-time state qualifier in the 400-meter dash, earned a berth in the finals for the first time by running a personal best time of 50.59 in Friday’s preliminaries.
Willers' effort in the preliminaries was the fifth best on Friday, but he couldn't match it on Saturday. The Patriot senior ran a 51.26 to place eighth overall. Stewartville's Lance Moen was the champion in 48.93.
A Saturday morning thunderstorm forced the high jump competition to move indoors, where Fransman battled his way to a ninth-place finish.
Goehle said the senior made strong bids to clear 6-2, but only could get past 6-0 that day. Comfrey-Springfield's Kyle Marks cleared 6-6 to win the state title.