SIOUX FALLS — Sanborn Central/Woonsocket’s Jeff Boschee steadily improved all season in the boys high jump.

At the Class A state track and field meet on Thursday afternoon at Howard Wood Field, the improvement took him right to a state championship.

Boschee, a sophomore for the Blackhawks, was the only Class A jumper to clear 6 feet, 3 inches, allowing him to emerge with a state title.

“I’m just excited,” Boschee said. “I’ve never done that before and I’m just a sophomore, so that was pretty thrilling.”

The title-winning effort completed a pretty incredible climb for Boschee this season. As a freshman in 2021, his best high jump mark was 5 feet, 6 inches, and when he competed for the first time this season, at the Greenway Relays in Mount Vernon on April 22, he cleared 5-foot-4, where he finished 10th in the meet.

From there, he leaped up to 6-foot-2 and reached 6-foot-3 at last week’s Region 5A meet. But Boschee was under the radar for most of the season and was not among the 32 participants in the boys high jump at the Howard Wood Dakota Relays less than three weeks ago, where the region’s best are typically in attendance.

“I just kept working at it,” Boschee said. “I knew I had more to show because I’ve improved so much.”

Matching his region performance once more did the job for a state title on Thursday for Boschee. The competition started at 5-foot-10 and quickly saw the remaining jumpers whittled down to only three after the 6-foot-2 height. Only Boschee cleared 6-foot-3, leaving Lennox’s Layton Smith and Custer’s Mikael Grace behind in second and third place, respectively. When Boschee hit the mat with the winning jump, he could only bring his hands to his face in exhilaration and excitement.

Boschee was seeded second in the field prior to Thursday. He said he was most concerned about competing with Mount Vernon/Plankinton’s Reed Rus, who came into the event as the top seed at 6-foot-4. The final podium was filled with MVP’s Jordan Stoltz was fourth in the final standings, with a top jump of 6 feet, while Rus was fifth at the same height. Ethan/Parkston’s Gage Hohn was seventh (6-0).

“I was thinking I was going to have to get to at least 6-4 to win,” Boschee said. “I felt like (Rus) was my main competition and when he went out at (6-0), I knew I had a shot to win it.”

“I knew what the other jumpers in the class could do, and I felt like I was right there too,” Boschee added. “I wanted to show it.”

Freeman Academy/Marion’s 4x800-meter relay team did something many Class B foursomes have sought and not always accomplished at the state meet: repeat as state champions.

The Bearcats’ relay team of Quincy Blue, Malachi Myers, Tavin Schroeder, Thalen Schroeder won the opening track event of the three-day state meet on Thursday in a time of 8:22.75.

It is the third time since 2013 that a Class B 4x800 team has repeated, joining Parker in 2013 and 2014, along with Ipswich in 2017 and 2018.

Veteran runner Thalen Schroeder said he was kind of responsible for making sure most of the band stuck together for another Class B title chance. He said he helped convince leadoff runner Quincy Blue to participate after a long basketball season, plus Malachi Myers returned to the relay team. The three seniors were joined by Schroeder’s younger brother, Tavin, a sophomore, who Thalen said he convinced to be their fourth to tie the team together.

“I was worried and I said, ‘We need a fourth, if we want to do this,’” Schroeder recalled. “He stepped up and he was running below a 2:10 time, 2:08, I think, which was huge.”

The performance was 10 seconds ahead of the school’s seed time for the race, which was in the No. 1 slot entering Thursday. But Schroeder said they were not in a position to take it for granted.

“We all knew we had one purpose, to come in and work,” he said. “We had not run a lot together this season so we knew we had to work for it, because we had not done it enough. … We wanted it and everyone showed that.”

After Freeman Academy/Marion, Burke was second in the race, finishing in a time of 8:30.85 with the quartet of Bryce Frank, Reed Benter, Nick Nelson and Ben Witt. Kimball/White Lake (8:37.17) and Wessington Springs (8:42.17) finished sixth and eighth, respectively.

Mitchell High School’s first podium finish of the Class AA state meet came in the boys long jump behind the efforts of Treyson Schulz.

Schulz, a junior for the Kernels, took seventh place in the event with a top jump of 20 feet, 11.75 inches. Aberdeen Central’s Sam Rohlfs won the event with a leap of 23 feet, 5.25 inches, as he achieved a new Class AA meet record in the event, successfully defending his 2021 state title.

Schulz’s jump came on the final leap of his opening flight and assured him of a top-eight finish, earning Mitchell two team points on the first day of competition. Mitchell’s Lilly Young had the best finish of the day for Kernel girls, taking 13th place in the shot put with a throw of 33 feet, 10 inches. O’Gorman’s Megan VanDenHemel won the event with a throw of 41-5.75.

Here's a list of area placewinners and highlights from the opening day of the 2022 state track meet.