Viola hits all the right notes

First up for MariElla Viola the WIAA Division 1 Sauk Prairie Sectional track and field meet on May 23 was the 100-yard dash. Viola took fourth, narrowly missing out on one of the top three state-qualifying spots. Next was the 800-meter relay. Viola and her Sauk Prairie teammates also took fourth, again just missing out on a trip to La Crosse. The junior was frustrated, but she had one more chance, that being in the 200-meter dash. No one for Sauk Prairie had qualified yet, and she didn’t want the Eagles to get shut out. “So I thought to myself, ‘Hey, tonight sucked,’ ” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of people go to state, but I want to make the most of this. I got fired up, I saw that I had a chance, I kicked it, and it worked.” Indeed it did. Viola, seeded fourth, ended up taking third, crossing the finish line in 25.78 seconds to punch her ticket to next weekend’s state meet. “I was just focusing on, ‘OK, I’ve got to get my start, I’ve got to stay low and I’ve got to accelerate,’ ” Viola said. “That’s all I thought about. I blocked everything else out around me, and I think that’s what got me third.” Viola came in right behind Verona’s Nicole Repka (25.60 seconds) and champion Lydia Lazarescu of Holmen (:25.32) but was almost half-second clear of fourth place. Waiting for her at the finish line was Eagles coach Andy Sherman, who gave her a big hug. “When she got on the straightaway and I knew she was in third, nobody was going to catch her on that one,” Sherman said. “The hug was just reminding her how proud of her I am and that I’m so thankful we’re not done yet. I want to keep going next week.” Carrying the torch for Sauk Prairie isn’t lost on Viola, either. “It means so much,” Viola said. “We have an amazing program. We just happen to not necessarily always have the numbers in every event. “So knowing that I’m going, I feel like I’m representing my whole team and my community.” Viola’s fourth-place time in the 100 (:12.54) was just less than two-tenths of a second behind the third-place time of :12.36 turned in by Onalaska’s Jenna Richgels. In the 800 relay, which she ran along with teammates Ayla Sorg, Ella Weigel and Lexi Been, the Eagles weren’t quite as close, taking fourth (1:46.02) and finishing almost a second behind Middleton (1:45.19). But Viola made sure Sauk Prairie will be represented in La Crosse by digging in and getting the job done in the 200. “I’m running this first curve and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m moving fast and I’m flying.’ And then I kicked it and I started thinking, I’m like, ‘OK, I only have one girl in front of me; I’m supposed to have two other girls but I only see one. I have this,’ ” she said. “So I just ran. I tried to catch the one girl that took second but I couldn’t. But I was there. I was eager to get her.” Like that, Viola’s mood changed. She was able to erase the memory of feeling disappointed with how her first two events went and got the job done in her final event of the night. “I needed to get her over there and remind her of the classic line from Ted Lasso, ‘Be a goldfish and let it go. Forget it and move on to the next one,’ ” Sherman said. “She did everything she needed to do in the 4x200. Relays it’s about everybody being a part of it and it just didn’t work out for us.  “We knew the teams we were running against were really good. She was able to reset and remind herself that she still had a good shot at this one. Her 200 has come a long way.” Viola did qualify for state in the 100-meter dash last year as a sophomore and the Eagles also qualified in the 800 relay. She added the 200 this year, Sherman said, because she wants to run in college and doing so has diversified her résumé, so to speak. And it turns out that’s the event that has continued her season another week. “After that 100, I was dead, I was tired,” she said. “But after this, knowing that I placed third, I’m ecstatic.” Sauk Prairie had a number of other sectional qualifiers, both girls and boys, who didn’t advance, including on the girls side: • Evelyn Bahe in the 400 (eighth in 1:02.79). • Charlotte Gregg in the 800 (fifth in 2:28.79). • Aaliyah Bermudo and Lainey Dillon in the 1,600 (sixth and eighth in 5:43.23 and 6:06.72), respectively. • Dillon in the 3,200 (eighth in 13:54.02). • The 1,600 relay team of Sorg, Bahe, Gregg and Been (sixth in 4:12.51). • The 3,200 relay team of Gregg, Bahe, Bermudo and Clarissa Brickl (sixth in 10:23.74). • Reagan Chrisler in the pole vault (eighth; 7 feet, 6 inches). And on the boys side: • Landon Schultz in the 400 (fifth in :52.35). • Trent Backeberg in the 110 hurdles (eighth in :16.07). • Michael Blau in the high jump (eighth; 5-10). Sherman said that even though their seasons have come to an end, having it do so at sectionals and not earlier in the week at regionals — which Sauk Prairie also played host to — is no small accomplishment. “Our sectional is really good, and our regional has gotten really good,” he said. “You get to just see the quality of kids and how our kids fit into that. I’m proud of everybody who ran tonight and qualified (for this meet). It’s not easy.” And overall it was another successful night at Sauk Prairie’s still-like-brand-new state of the art track facility — weather included. In the midst of a very volatile week of weather, Thursday was a beautiful spring night -- sunny, not humid, not windy, not too hot, not too cold. In a word, perfect. “It blew our high jump pit 30 yards. I was more worried about things here than I was about my home during those storms,” Sherman said of the weather earlier in the week. “We had three tornado warnings. I got a nice picture of a wall cloud. It’s been a crazy week. I’m going to take this weather today. “It was a great meet tonight and I’m excited that we get to keep going (with Viola) for another week.”