West Iron track teams place third, show early-season progress at Menominee

West Iron County’s boys and girls each turned in a third-place finish at the Menominee Invitational, an early sign that both programs are adding depth as the spring season develops. The Wykons scored 40 points on the boys side and 43 for the girls, with several athletes delivering podium finishes that stretched the lineup beyond a single standout performance.

Seth Oberlin led the boys by winning the 400-meter dash, while Alex Ghigga took first in shot put. Eduel Spencer finished second in both the mile and the 800-meter run, and Macintyre McNamee placed second in long jump. On the girls side, Bristol Shamion won the 100 hurdles, the 300 hurdles and high jump, and Kendall McDonald added a second-place finish in the 200. Those results gave West Iron another early-season checkpoint after a schedule that has already shown the program can score in multiple events.

The Wykons had shown that balance earlier at Florence, where Saul Kobussen won the 100 in 12.5 seconds and Oberlin won the 800. West Iron’s girls also took the 4x200 relay in 2:01 with Cheyenne Ritchie, Lilyanna DeSousa, Shamion and Eriana Sucholl. At the Bobcat Invitational, West Iron’s boys finished fourth overall with 92.33 points, and Shamion beat Forest Park’s Ava Fischer in the 100 hurdles, 17.2 seconds to 17.3, in one of the tighter local matchups of the spring.

The progress comes with context. Coach Jeff Taff was in his third year guiding the West Iron boys, and the program had 16 athletes after struggling with low participation in earlier seasons. The girls roster stood at 32, and coaches expected more than a few athletes to be in the mix for Upper Peninsula honors later in May. After the boys scored 10 points at the UP Finals in 2024 and 30 last year, the steady rise in points and places has mattered as much as any individual medal.

Forest Park has also been building toward the same late-spring meets. The Trojans finished second at North Dickinson with 97 points, just four behind the host team, and senior Ava Fischer set a school record in pole vault at 8 feet, 10 inches while winning the 100 and 300 hurdles. With senior leaders on both rosters and relay wins already in hand, both Iron County programs are moving into the stretch where early promise has to hold up against the county’s biggest meets.