Highlight On The Two Rivers Recruits
6/12/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Outdoor Track
This article is reprinted from the May 23, 2000, Herald Times Reporter, courtesy of Dave Mondt, sports editor, and the Herald Times Reporter.
VALDERS, Wis. -
by Dave Mondt
In a plethora of praiseworthy performances Monday at the WIAA Valders track and field regionals, two athletes stood above all others.
Marquette University track and field coach Dave Uhrich was happy to see that.
Uhrich, a Manitowoc Lincoln High School Class of 1980 graduate, watched closely the races run by Two Rivers Washington High runners Bo Erickson and Brianna Dahm.
He looked on at Valders High as Erickson and Dahm turned the track meet into their personal auditions - not that they needed to audition, since both already had inked scholarships to run for the Division I program next year.
"Bo is a classical distance runner," said TR track coach Scott Helling, watching Erickson fly by effortlessly in the lat stages of the 3,200-meter run. "He stays real relaxed."
Erickson will run long distance for Marquette, which suits him perfectly.
"I get stronger as the race gets longer," said Erickson, whose 1999 3,200-meter state championship was run faster than high school personal bests of all but three members of the 1999 Golden Eagles' cross country team. "It's one of those things where I'm so relaxed I can feel it through my whole body."
Other runners' shoulders droop, their arms lose their swing and their legs buckle. All the while, Bo Erickson never loses his perfect posture, his perfect stride.
He easily won both events he ran Monday, taking the 1600 in 4 minutes, 29.2 seconds and the 3200 in 9:42 - and both times were 4-5 seconds off his year's best.
"Distance runners, a lot of times, can make themselves great just through their work ethic and things like that," Uhrich said.
That's certainly the case with Erickson, who never takes a season off - he runs cross country in the fall and was the point man and seventh-place overall finisher for TR's state championship team. He swims in the winter and runs track in the spring.
"In distance running, to keep up, you have to run year-round," Uhrich said. "If you're going to keep up, you can never get away from the sport."
"Swimming is probably the best thing I do," said Erickson, who is the alternate for TR's 4x800 relay team. "It adds so much strength to my upper body."
As good as Erickson was - and is - Dahm was even more dominant.
Even though her times ran three, 15 and 23 seconds of her season-bests, the petite, steady runner focused on the finish and easily won three individual events for the second time in two weeks (and the second time in her life).
She is the athlete to watch and everyone at the meet knows it. "She's very even-paced," said Mishicot High track coach Lisa Van Hefty. "She knows how to kick and when to kick. She runs a race how it's supposed to be run."
The addition of Marquette alumnus and All-America runner Amy Klein (formerly Amy Erickson) to the TR coaching staff has taken Dahm's already boastful times to a whole new level.
"Amy helped a lot because she wanted me to run certain splits in certain times, and before I just ran and didn't really pay attention to where I was in the race," Dahm said. "(Amy) talks to me during the race and she'll yell, `You're going too fast,' or `Too slow' or `You're going just right.'"
Klein, who will take over as the Raiders coach next year when current coach Sharon Malone moves to Madison with her fianc? (who proposed to her last week at the conference meet), is Bo's brother and the daughter of TR cross country coach Greg Erickson.
Her input was influential in both Bo and Brianna choosing Marquette.
"Both Bo and Brianna showed from an early age their ability as runners," Uhrich said, "and of course I already knew Bo through his family. But Amy would always say, `Hey, TR's got this other girl, you've got to watch her, she's really good.'"
Uhrich found that out first hand, as Dahm posted times in the mile run faster than all but one of his nationally-ranked women's team's middle distance runners had run in their high school careers.
On Monday, Dahm won the 1600 in 5:19, the 800 in 2:24 and the 3200 in 11:42.7, almost 40 seconds ahead of second-place Jenna Ramaker of Valders.
And she's still learning.
"This is Amy's first year as our distance coach," malone said. "She specializes (Brianna's) workouts. Amy herself being an elite runner, she knows exactly how to train (Brianna)."
"Brianna is very untapped," Uhrich said. "She's kind of like Amy. Amy wasn't even my top recruit that year, but she came out her last season and made All-America.
She's probably learned so much here this last year. Amy's just a great role model for Brianna to have."
Marquette's track and cross country programs hardly have the funds to send runners through four years of school on a full ride, so it helps that both runners will supplement their athletic scholarships.
Erickson was granted a leadership scholarship and Dahm, who carries a 3.8 grade-point average and scored 27 on the ACT, will have an academic scholarship.
"(Uhrich's) got two quality individuals going down there," Helling said.
"There's no doubt about that."