Forreston-Polo takes second at Oregon Hall of Fame Hawk Classic

OREGON – With Class 1A sprint relay powers from Forreston-Polo, Lena-Winslow and Morrison entered at the Oregon Hall of Fame Hawk Classic, a mini-state meet was expected. However, a short-handed Morrison team scratched out of the 4x200 and 4x400-meter relays and used a backup squad in the 4x100 relay.

Last year, the Mustangs won the all three relays at the state meet and returned the bulk of those units, including star runner Brady Anderson. At Oregon, it came down to Levi Milder, who took second in the 100 and 200 meters to Alec Schlichting of Le-Win.

“We let Brady rest and get healthy,” Milder said. “There are bigger and brighter things ahead.”

The 200 between Schlichting and Milder was a near photo finish at 22.07-22.09, which rank as the first and third best times in 1A this year.

“Considering the weather delay, rain and cold, I’m okay with that time,” said Milder, who was sixth in the 1A state meet as a sophomore with a 22.38.

Schlichting, who has the top 1A time in the 100, bested Milder 10.99 to 11.09 and also led Le-Win to a win in the 4x100 relay. He was awarded co-MVP of the meet with Rochelle pole vaulter Andrew Nuyen, who broke the meet record by nearly two feet.

Erik Lindahl of Erie-Prophetstown had the record at 14-9, set in 2002. With a large crowd assembled around the pole vault pit, the nationally-ranked Nuyen cleared 16-6 and had a close attempt at 17-1.

Nuyen helped the Hubs to their first-ever win at the meet. In the 21-team field, Rochelle had 95 points to 76 for second-place Forreston-Polo. In a close battle for third, it was Woodstock North with 63, Le-Win 62 and Winnebago 60.

F-P dominated the jumps and took second in the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 relays.

Sophomore Jonathan Milnes, who had never tried long jumping until this week, surprised the field with a leap of 20 feet, 8 inches to claim first.

“My thought process was to throw my speed out and do the best I could,” said Milnes, who also took third in the high jump at 5-10.

Fellow sophomore teammate Eli Ferris was second in the high jump at 6-feet. Ferris and Milnes also ran on the 4x100 and 4x200 relays that took second.

Senior triple jumper Billy Lowry was first in the triple jump for F-P with a mark of 41 feet, 4 inches, done on his first attempt before the weather turned inclement and the meet delayed for lightning. Hunter DeWall added a third in the discus with a toss of 140 feet.

It was on the track that Forreston-Polo was most impressive, with senior Noah Dewey anchoring a sophomore-laden groups in each of the three relays.

“My sophomore year, I was taught things by the seniors,” said Dewey, a five-time state relay medalist. “I’m trying to do the same thing with these sophomores. We have a lot of fast guys and I love the cooperation it takes, whether it’s Polo or Forreston runners.”

With Ferris, Milnes and another sophomore, Brody Schwartz joining Dewey, the quartet ran a 1:31.18 in the 4x200 relay, second to Woodstock North’s 1:31.04 and the fifth best time so far in 1A.

Schwarz, Milnes, Dewey and Hayden Vinnedge were close behind Le-Win in the 4x100 relay, 43.37 to 43.88. In the 4x400 relay, won by Byron with a 3:29, Ferris, Vinnedge, Schwarz and Dewey were next at 3:32.

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Rochelle's Andrew Nuyen clears the bar setting a new pole vault record at the Hawk Classic on Friday, May 2, 2025 at the Landers-Loomis Field in Oregon. (Earleen Hinton)

Milledgeville-Eastland was close behind in third at 3:33, with Konner Johnson, Micah Toms-Smith, Adam Awender and Draven Zier. The same group was fourth in the 4x200 relay (1:33.50).

Parker Krogman did give the program a title with a season-best time of 41.61 in the 300 hurdles.

“Dropping the baton in the 4x100 relay and running a bad race in the high hurdles set me up for this,” Krogman said. “I knew I couldn’t have another bad performance.”

Milledgeville-Eastland tied Morrison for 11th with 27 points. Oregon was next with 24, followed by Newman 19 and Erie-Prophtestown 18.

In the most competitive event of the meet, with six runners at 2:01 or lower, Wyatt Widolff of Newman and Daniel Gonzales of Oregon had PRs in attempting to chase down Evan White of Rockford Christian in the 800 meters. White held on to win in 1:57.68. Widolff was next at 1:58.28 and Gonzales 1:58.53.

“I wanted to pace off Evan and out-kick him, but he‘s got a legendary kick himself,” said Wildoff, who ran a 1:55 in helping Newman nearly break the state 1A record in the 4x800 relay last year.

For Gonzales, it was his first time under 2 minutes and the junior has Ian Hussung’s school record of 1:56.57 in his sights.

“I got tripped at 450 meters in and lost some momentum,” Gonzales said. “I used it as motivation and then on the last 150, I treated it like I was running downhill.”

Newman’s 4x800 relay of Briar Ivey, Cody McBride, Trevor Simpson and Widolff were third at 8:44.

A surprise fourth place for Newman was George Jungerman’s PR of 135-6 in the discus. Oregon got a fourth from Briggs Sellers in the shot put with an effort of 45.4.

Amboy’s Joel Billhorn was fourth in the 400 meters with a 53.72. E-P got a third from Nathan Punke (12-0) and fifth from Aidan Jepson (11-6) in the pole vault. Freshman Lane Decker had a PR of 43.71 to take fourth in the 300 hurdles for Morrison.