Bemidji Jacks win Northwest Quad, celebrate senior Peter Mathews at Peter Day

Bemidji High School’s track and field program kept building momentum in late April, winning the Northwest Quad and turning Peter Day into a tribute to lone senior Peter Mathews. The results added to a stretch that has the Jacks looking like much more than a routine spring team in Beltrami County.

The strongest sign came Thursday at Detroit Lakes, where the Bemidji track and field team collected 12 first-place finishes. That kind of haul is hard to ignore this late in the season, especially for a program trying to line up athletes and relays for the meets that matter most in May. For a school like Bemidji High School, depth across events can be the difference between a promising day and a section-level threat.

The momentum did not start there. A separate late-April prep roundup described Bemidji track athletes as having a good day in Brainerd, with the 800-meter runners specifically highlighted. That mattered because middle-distance strength often travels well from one meet to the next, and it can give a team a reliable base as competition tightens across northwest Minnesota.

Taken together, the recent results point to a Jacks squad with multiple ways to win, not just one standout result. The Northwest Quad victory, the 12 first-place finishes at Detroit Lakes, and the Brainerd showing all came during an active spring stretch covered repeatedly in The Bemidji Pioneer’s prep sports pages. That volume of success suggests Bemidji is entering the part of the season where section placement and state qualification start to feel realistic, not remote.

Peter Mathews’ recognition on Peter Day added a human marker to that run. As the team’s lone senior, Mathews stood as the program’s final upperclassman point of reference, even as younger runners and field athletes supplied the results. In a season that has already produced wins in Bemidji, Detroit Lakes and Brainerd, the celebration underscored both the present success and the next wave of Jacks track ahead.