Advertisement
In the last race of his high school career, Donny Wasinger didn’t just finish a state champion, he left with a state record.
The Cotter High School senior blew away the competition in the 1,600-meter Saturday at the Class 1A state track and field meet at Hamline University.
Wasinger finished with a Class 1A record time of 4 minutes, 15.2 seconds, and ended his Cotter career with five state titles. Kingsland’s Chris Erichsen had the old record with a 4:15.71 back in 2004.
Wasinger defended both his 3,200 and 1,600 titles this weekend, and also won the Class 1A state cross country championship in the fall. Not a bad senior year.
“I was nervous,” Wasinger said. “I don’t usually get too nervous, but I was thinking about this race a lot today.”
It wasn’t obvious that Wasinger was even going to win, let alone get a record.
“The Perham guys came in with close to the same times,” Cotter coach Dave Forney said of Perham’s Eddie Stenger and Kevin Lachowitzer, who had 1,600 times less than a second slower than Donny’s best of the season. “Donny’s goal was to win, that record in the last race of his (Cotter) career, that’s icing on the cake.”
The race went something like this: Wasinger was third after a lap, and then moved ahead of the pack on the backside of the second lap. On the backside of the third lap he started to pull away from everyone, and you had to wonder if he forgot there was another lap to go.
“I was surprised nobody went with him,” Forney said.
At that point, things got a little boring, because Wasinger kept getting further and further ahead.
“When I pass, I like to close the door,” Wasinger said. “I don’t like to leave a glimmer, otherwise someone will come with me. I like to pass with some force.”
Heading into the final lap, nobody was near him. He just kept going faster and faster.
“Donny has that last lap down,” Forney said.
When he came down the backstretch with 100 meters to go things started to get interesting. Everyone was looking at Wasinger and then the clock by the finish line to see if he was going to get the record.
Though everyone else kind of suspected it, Wasinger said he had no idea he had the record as he crossed the finish line.
“I didn’t know until I heard it announced,” Wasinger said. “It’s just awesome.”
The race wrapped up a senior year in which Wasinger won all but two races in track and cross country. He lost at the Griak to Burnsville’s Rob Finnerty, who won the Class 2A titles in cross country, the 3,200 and the 1,600.
In track, Wasinger lost at a meet in Plainview, Minn., in the 1,600 to Plainview-Elgin-Millville’s Tom Pesch. But that came about five minutes after Wasinger took part in a medley relay where he ran an 800.
What’s also interesting about the 1,600 title is it was the eighth-consecutive won by an athlete from Section 1A. With the win, Wasinger became the eighth-consecutive runner from the section to take the 1,600, which included Cotter’s Kyle Brandon in 2004.
“It’s great to be a part of that,” Wasinger said. “Hopefully we can keep it going.“
