Arrowhead wins back-to-back D1 titles

• The Arrowhead Warhawks girls track and field team won their second consecutive Division 1 state title.
• Junior Avery Bott led the Warhawks with top-three finishes in the 100m, 200m, and 400m races.
• Elise Schroeder, the defending pole vault champion, won her second straight state title.

LA CROSSE — For Arrowhead girls track and field coach Bradley Clark, it’s simple.

Put the names on the sheet. The girls will take care of the rest.

“It’s just nice to watch them work,” Clark said. “I mean, people asked me, they’ve told me congratulations and I’m like, ‘They do all the work.’ I just write their names down and helped them with workouts. They put in all the work they all had the competitive drive to do what they did.”

For the second straight season, the Warhawks won the Division 1 state team track title with 51 total points to fend off a pesky Neenah bunch in search of its first team title in program history.

Arrowhead’s second straight title marked the first time since 2017 (Milwaukee King) that a D1 girls program won back-to-back titles. Fellow Classic 8 Conference member Muskego also won titles in 2019 and 2021, but the 2020 meet was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s the best,” Clark said on the back-to-back team title run. “That’s why you get into coaching. Seeing them be happy is all I need.”

The Warhawks scored points in seven total events over the weekend with 34 of their team points coming from stars Avery Bott in her triple sprint title quest and defending pole vault state champion and current statewide record holder Elise Schroeder, who won the state title for the second straight season.

“It’s amazing,” Bott said on being a part of the Warhawks program. “The team is great. The environment around everyone is just amazing. Everyone’s really supportive. I have some really great friends on the team that I did relays with in the past and some individual events, but it’s amazing to be a part of.”

Bott worked her way up the podium with a third-place finish in the 100, a runner-up finish in the 400 and then finally stood on the top step after winning the 200 that clinched the team crown for the Warhawks with one running event to go.

Along with Bott’s three top-three finishes, junior Emily Corteen picked up a pair of key points with a seventh-place finish in the pole vault with Schroeder in a meet where the point differential between champion and runner-up was just five points.

“The depth,” Clark said on what made the 2025 version of the Warhawks stand out. “A lot of our coaches pointed out that we were the only team across the state that scored in every event at sectionals. I think the depth is just there and we got people that are good at everything. It makes coaching easy sometimes.”

Schroeder, Josie Bularz, Giselle Huggett and Payton Eicher stood second on the podium in the 4×100-meter relay final, coming just .19 seconds short of dethroning conference rival Mukwonago as state champion. Eicher also contributed early on Day 2 with five key points of her own thanks to a fourth-place finish in the long jump finals that was won by Neenah’s Celia Gentile.

“We have so many juniors, which, I mean, helps a lot,” Schroeder said with a laugh. “We’re all in classes together, supporting each other. The seniors are so supportive of us as well. We always help the younger classmen and I think every single person helps them, showing them around and they even know stuff that we just don’t even need to tell them. They know what to do.”

The Arrowhead boys fell two points short of a fifth straight team title, but it’s clear Arrowhead’s dominance is stretching beyond boys coach Chris Herriot’s program. Each of the individual scorers for the Warhawks in their team title triumph are juniors, including the 4×100-meter relay quartet that won runner-up medals on Day 2.

“It’s unreal,” Schroeder said. “It’s like almost bittersweet because it’s junior year, you know, only one more year, hoping to maybe end it with another.”

When asked about a potential three-peat in 2026, Schroeder shot a smile, a laugh and simply said, “Maybe.”