No one was more excited Friday at the Section 7A championships than Dan Zika when a local sports editor informed the long-time Broncos assistant coach that Shawn Filipiak had won a tiebreaker and finished second in the high jump.
“I went crazy,” Zika said Tuesday while preparing for this week’s Class A state championships at Hamline University in St. Paul.
Filipiak’s runner-up finish, combined with Tim Myles’ section title in the event, gave the Broncos two state qualifiers in the high jump. Jake Jensen and Alicia Hendrickson also qualified in the pole vault, leading to a heavy dose of praise toward Zika from head track and field coaches Jen Erickson and Paul Hjelle following Friday’s section meet. Zika’s been an assistant track and field coach for “only 32” years, he said, and has most recently specialized in the high jump and pole vault.
“I was really pleasantly surprised, but these guys earned it,” the humble assistant coach said about Myles and Filipiak, who jump on Saturday at 3 p.m. Jensen competes at 3 p.m. Friday, while Hendrickson competes at 3 p.m. Saturday, as well.
The high jumping duo enters Saturday’s competition with the two shortest qualifying heights from sections at 5 feet, 10 inches (Myles) and 5-7 (Filipiak), but they both have personal-best performances of 6-0 this season. Two athletes are seeded at 5-11, four are at 6-0, three are at 6-1, one is at 6-2 and three are at 6-3. The favorite, Austin Dennis of Walker-Hackensack-Akeley, is seeded at 6-8 1/4.
“Another 6-foot jump would be great, but anything higher would be icing on the cake,” Zika said, noting Myles, a junior, and Filipiak, a sophomore, have been practicing well this week. It will be the first state competition for each high jumper.
“They’re doing pretty much everything they can to prepare themselves,” Zika said.
Jensen, a sophomore and another first-timer at state, is beaming with confidence in an event he picked up just last summer.
“I’m looking at winning state. I’m not gonna lie,” he said. “That’s my goal. I ain’t kidding.”
And he has reason to be confident. He’s undefeated outdoors in the pole vault this season and it would be hard to find a track or field athlete who’s spent more time at the track this year.
“He’s really improved himself with all that desire,” said Zika, who noted he’s missed “probably 15-20 suppers” this season with Jensen staying late at practice.
“I’m always the first one pole vaulting and the last one to leave,” Jensen said.
The sophomore’s unblemished record this spring outdoors will be heavily put to the test Friday as he enters the competition as the 13th seed out of 16 competitors. Alex Berner of Concordia Academy, the No. 1 seed, cleared 13-8 at sections, compared to Jensen’s 12-4. However, Jensen’s personal-best height of 13-0 would place him as the No. 5 seed, behind Berner and three athletes at 13-2.
“If I have a good day, I can hop right up there,” Jensen said, noting he’s using a pole former Bronco Raph Gelo used to win state two years ago. Raph qualified for state three years in a row, finishing first as a junior and second last year as a senior.
“Hopefully his luck will rub off on me,” Jensen said.
For Hendrickson, who’s returning to state after finishing just out of the top 10 last year, the biggest challenge will be turning practice results into competition results. Her personal-best in a meet this year is 9-0, but she’s cleared 10-0 in practice. It’s still far from top-seeded Shannon Stever’s 11-4 from La Crescent, but Hendrickson expects her experience last year can only help her on Saturday.
“I got really freaked out when I got there (last year), but once I got going I forgot about everything and acted like a normal meet,” she said.
Hendrickson is also only the second girl from International Falls to advance to state in the pole vault, and surprise, the other girl is a Zika — Sarah Zika, Dan’s daughter. Sarah qualified for state in 2004.
“We always have one or two excellent pole vaulters each year and the younger kids feed off that,” Dan Zika said.
