Prescott’s girls’ track and field team has utilized the roster’s size and well-dispersed talent to make winning a Division 2 regional championship a seemingly annual tradition.

The Lady Cardinals won their third consecutive such title when they scored 143 points as a team at the 2023 Division 2 regional meet in Durand on Monday, May 22. In addition to the team hardware, Prescott’s girls also featured four individual regional champions.

Individual champions include the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x800-meter relays, as well as sophomore distance specialist Katie Huppert, who won the 1,600-meter run and was their only non-relay title winner.

Prescott’s 143 team points were more than 20 clear of Baldwin-Woodville, which finished runner-up with 109.5 points. The Cardinals won the title going away in large part because their athletes scored points in 17 of 18 total events on Monday evening in Durand.

For Prescott’s Emily Calabrese, who has coached the Cardinals with her husband Carl Calabrese for more than half a decade, the success is a reflection of the talent and depth that they have on the girls’ side of the program.

“It speaks volumes to the track that the girls are on right now,” Emily Calabrese said. “We’ve had a really solid team for years. It speaks to how deep our team is and how talented the girls’ side has been for years, especially because they continue to make it happen year after year.”

Prescott had success in essentially every event on the docket. However, the Cardinals had just one non-relay individual champion because Calabrese and the coaching staff stacked the relays with top athletes to give them the best chance at state qualification.

The results? Three of the four girls’ relay squads won regional championships. The 4x100 included freshman Amanda Miller, juniors Kianna Severson and Kennedy Braun and senior Katrina Budworth. They ran a 51.08, more than a second clear of runner-up Elk Mound.

The 4x200-meter relay squad of Miller, Braun, Katrina Budworth and junior Ava Budworth ran a championship-winning time of 1:48.59. They finished four seconds ahead of second-place Durand and eight clear of Saint Croix Central’s bronze performance.

Prescott’s final championship relay was the 4x800 team that included Ava Budworth, junior Sophie Ripley and seniors Ella Johnson and Evalyn Sieben. They claimed the title with a time of 10:08.59, which bested seven other top relay squads from area schools.

The 4x100 and 4x800 squads qualified for state just three days later at the Division 2 sectional meet in Arcadia. The 4x400-meter relay group of Ripley, Johnson and Katrina and Ava Budworth may not have won a regional title, but they qualified for state with a strong showing at sectionals. Prescott’s 4x200 came up two seconds short of qualifying for state.

“At this point in the year, we were stacking the relays that we think can potentially make it to state,” Calabrese said. “The relay was where it was at and it ended up paying off because they’re going to state.”

Other notable results from regionals include senior Addison Huppert and the aforementioned Johnson’s third and fourth-place finishes respectively in the girls’ pole vault event. Freshman Makaria Haas earned runner-up honors in the discus when she threw 108 feet, 3 inches. Sophomore Kendra Ogilvie took fourth in the discus with a toss of 92 feet, 4 inches.

Braun finished fourth in the 100-meter dash while Ripley took second in the 400-meter run. Freshman Ellise Welter took fourth in the 1,600-meter and senior distance specialist, the aforementioned Sieben, finished third in the 3,200-meter event.

Freshman MaKenna Ogilvie and her sister, sophomore Kendra Ogilvie, finished second and third respectively in the 300-meter hurdles, which qualified the duo for the sectional meet in Arcadia. Emily Calabrese spoke about how their efforts symbolized Prescott’s larger success at the meet.

“It’s depth, but I think it’s the size of the team too,” Emily Calabrese said. “Look at the Ogilvie sisters. They both went to sectionals in the 300 hurdles. They’re not relay members, so it was awesome to use them in their best events. It helps to have the numbers to be able to spread into those open events and do really well there too.”

Prescott’s remaining athletes will be in action at the WIAA Division 2 state championships in La Crosse on Friday, June 2, and Saturday, June 8. Events are slated to begin each morning at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse at 9:30 a.m.