Sports
Aide wins second straight pole vault title
Tyler Ohmann (Photo by Heather Milbrath)
05/29/2012
If Bottineau sophomore pole vaulter Harrison Aide played baseball he could probably help out the baseball team at state.
He has pretty good skills when it comes to state tournaments.
In fact, Aide would be batting 1.000, because he has gone 2-for-2 in the pole vault at state as he won his second straight title this past weekend clearing a height of 13 feet, six inches, a full foot higher than his next closest opponent.
“It was nice, but I didn’t pole vault that well this weekend,” Aide said. “I did have a couple of nice jumps at 14 feet, so it’s nice to be on top.”
Aide won the vault last year as a freshman with a height of 13 feet. He said this year went a little easier than last year.
“I hurt my shoulder playing hockey, but it was all better at state this year,” Aide said. “(Last year) felt good, this one felt a lot better I thought. This one went a lot faster, didn’t jump so many times.”
Aide entered the state tournament at the Bismarck Bowl as the favorite to win, plus his sister, Kelsey holds the girl’s pole vault record at 12 feet, four inches. She won five consecutive state titles from 2002-2006. Oh, and his dad was a heck of a vaulter too, a state champion in fact, and he is also Harrison’s coach, so needless to say the pressure was on for Harrison.
“I thought there was a lot of pressure on me, since I came in number one in the state,” Aide said. “I didn’t want to make anyone stress about me not winning.”
“I was pretty nervous though, but it came out good,” Aide added.
However, the pole vault wasn’t the only competition for Aide. He is also one of the top runners on Bottineau’s 4x100 meter, 4x200 meter and 4x400 meter relay teams.
In fact, the 4x100 team of junior Alberton Moncero, junior Trevor Wettlaufer, Aide and sophomore Cody Beaver finished in eighth place with a time of 46.58 seconds.
The 4x200 relay’s failed to break through the prelims, but the 4x400 team of Aide, Wettlaufer, freshman Braden Pewe and freshman Ethan Kerslake made the finals and took 13th place with a season-best 3:41.61.
“We did good on the relays,” Aide said. “We missed prelims in the four-by-two, but I thought we did good in the four-by-one and in the four-by-four, where we ran our best time.”
Wettlaufer also competed in the 400 meter dash, where he made the finals and finished in sixth place with a time of 52.03.
Stars steady at state
While the Braves had a champion in their midst, the Stars were busy putting up some solid finishes for themselves as well.
The Bottineau girl’s also had 4x100 meter, 4x200 meter and 4x400 meter relay teams competing over the weekend.
In fact the 4x100 team of Courtney Gallagher, Whitney Page, Megan Fix and Ashleigh Aufforth turned in the best finish of all the Bottineau relay teams, taking fourth place with a 51.73 second mark.
The 4x200 team of the same make-up finished in sixth place, while the 4x400 team, which subbed Maria Diepolder in for Page, finished in 13th in a timed final.
“I feel like we competed really well considering the weather conditions we had,” Aufforth said. “It’s tough because you have to warm up that much longer, and stay warm, because your muscles tigten up and it’s harder to run.”
“Of course you always get done and you say ‘oh, I could have done this, or we could have ran this much harder and done this much better,’ but overall I think we did really good,” Aufforth added.
Page, Diepolder, Gallagher and Aufforth also all competed individually in several events.
Page turned out the best Stars performance of the weekend with a second place finish in the long jump. Page jumped a distance of 17 feet, 2.5 inches to take the runner-up nod. Brittany Berndt, a senior from Velva, won the title with a jump of 17 feet, 7.25 inches.
Gallagher also was in the long jump competition and finished in a tie for 16th place with a jump of 15 feet, 3.75 inches.
Page and Diepolder also competed in the pole vault competition.
The pair each cleared nine feet, but Diepolder finished in a tie for fifth place, while Page took home seventh.
Lastly, Aufforth raced in the 200 meter dash. She failed to make the finals, finishing 12th in the prelims with a time of 27.25 seconds.
Aufforth said she had a bit of a realization when all was said and done.
“I had a lot of fun during, but after I was done I though ‘hey, I’m done with track,’” Aufforth said. “After volleyball it was sad, but at least I get to go play some more, but with track, that’s it, I’m done for good.”
Both Aufforth and Page’s track careers ended on Saturday, but they will both move on to play college volleyball. Aufforth will play on scholarship at Dakota College at Bottineau, while Page is walking on at the University of North Dakota.
In total the Stars tallied 21.5 points, which placed them in 12th of 40 teams that were represented throughout the tournament. Carrington won the girl’s tournament with a total of 80 points, besting second place Munich-Langdon, who had 65.5 points.
Bottineau had 13 points on the boy’s side for a finish of 19th place. Lisbon edged Rugby 80-67 to win the boy’s state team title.