SIOUX FALLS – Sam Rohlfs had one more big performance left in him Friday at Howard Wood Field in Sioux Falls.

The Aberdeen Central senior defended his Class AA state championship in the triple jump, before reinjuring his hamstring and calling in a career. Rohlfs set a personal record by a foot, leaping 46-feet, 9 3/4-inches on his first attempt to win the event.

“That was really big for me,” Rohlfs said of his initial leap. “I haven’t triple jumped in a while, so I felt like I’ve been building up some anticipation for that.”

Rohlfs, who will be competing for South Dakota State next season, said there was something unique and different about his personal best leap.

“Honestly, my last phase felt different, so I wasn’t sure,” Rohlfs said. “I was like this is either going to be a really good jump or a really bad jump. Let’s see how much sand is behind us. And it turned out to be a good jump.”

Teammate Jacob Merxbauer finished second in the triple jump. It was Merxbauer who helped to pick up the slack while Rohlfs missed a good chunk of the season due to his injury.

“He’s a great athlete and honestly he gets very underlooked, just because of some of the stuff that I’ve been doing,” Rohlfs said. “He did a great job taking care of the jumps.”

Last year Rohlfs won the triple jump on his final attempt, but needed no such drama on Friday.

“Last year I went into the triple jump number one, but I didn’t have this same confidence as I did today,” he said. “I’m a senior and this isn’t my first state track meet. I’ve been here for a while, so I knew it was going to take one big jump to secure this thing and I got it done.”

Rohlfs opted out of the 200-meter dash later in the day and plans to jog the 100-meter dash today to get his team at least one point.

He was happy that his final jumping event resulted in a state championship.

“I’m just happy that I could end my jumping career on that note,” Rohlfs said.

While things didn’t go exactly as planned, it was still a solid day for the Eagles, who lead the team standings by nine points heading into the final round.

“There’s still a lot of meet to go,” said Central boys’ coach Greg Murley. “I suspect Brandon Valley is going to come in and run like gangbusters (Saturday) and score a bunch of points on the track.”

Josh Martin was second in the 3,200-meter run and will be competing in the 1,600-meter run today.

Murley is proud of his senior leaders.

“(Sam) ended a pretty great career at Aberdeen Central. He is the all-time leading long jumper and owns our school record,” Murley said. “Josh Martin is going to leave Aberdeen Central with at least three school records.”

The Eagles capped off the day by setting a school record in the 1,600-meter relay. Their time of 3:24.26 is tops in the field heading into today’s finals. Members are Aiden Heimann, Merxbauer, Carter Dingman and Drew Salfrank.

That sets up the Eagles for a big day to conclude the season today.

“Six of the nine races (Saturday) we’ll have kids competing in,” Murley said. “That’s all we can ask for.”

The Central girls were led by Grace Kuch who grabbed a fifth-place finish in the discus.

While the discus is a technique event physically, Kuch said a bigger key was her mental approach.

“I just had a great week at practice. I took my time and just got in the right headspace,” Kuch said. “I was trying to get calm all day, trying to calm my nerves down.”

Kuch said another key to success was concentrating on the smaller details. She said she only threw a couple of times this week.

“The rest is all footwork and working on the little pieces of the puzzle,” Kuch said. “This is where I got to put it together. It feels amazing.”

The sophomore threw a personal best 115-feet 4-inches to secure fifth place.

Kuch, who also competed in the shot put and javelin, said she uses big regular season meets to help prepare her mentally for the state meet.

“Basically any big meet, I just use that as practice, like ESD, Howard Wood, I just use that to practice being calm when I go on the run or in the ring and practice staying calm,” Kuch said. “I listen to calm music before and then keep my nerves calm.”

Central girls’ coach Jim Appl was pleased with his thrower’s performance on Friday.

“I’m just so happy for her. She was in three events and she walks out of her with one place out of that and that’s awesome,” Appl said. “She gets her PR for the year going through there, which is what you ask for.”

The Golden Eagles are set up to score more points when action resumes today. Ciara Frank and Gracie Rife are both in finals and several relay teams will also be in action.

“That will put a nice bow on it at the end. That means arrow up, so that’s a good thing,” Appl said. “That’s means improvement from last year, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

To see meet results, click on the following link:

https://results.dakotatiming.com/display.html?event_id=1003