The 800-meter run, the two-lap sprint around the track, is anyone’s race and Caldera senior Dane Giessler knows it.

Last spring, Giessler became the first Caldera boys track athlete to win a state title by winning the 800 at Hayward Field in Eugene. He was stunned he won it. It was hard enough to win a state title in the event last year, and it is going to be an even bigger challenge to repeat.

“I’ve been thinking about it, everyone else is definitely gunning for you,” Giessler said. “I’ve been putting in my work knowing that the others are putting in their work as well. All you can do is train your hardest and go out and run.”

Giessler knows just how narrow the margins are in the 800, which is the most challenging race in the sport. It is a long enough race that a runner needs to be able to pace oneself, yet short enough that an all-out sprint is necessary.

“It is more of like a sprint,” Giessler said. “But there is also the aspect of being able to finish the second lap. If you go all out in the first lap you are going to feel it in the second.”

Over his high school career, Giessler has found the right combinations that have helped him win two Intermountain Conference and a state title in the event. He likes to stay in the pack of runners, even trail a runner or two in the first lap, before finding an extra gear in the final lap of the race to try and sprint ahead of the field.

It is a strategy that worked for him a year ago at Hayward Field in the Class 5A state track and field championships. He was fourth after the first lap, then pulled away and passed everyone in the final lap to win in 1 minute, 54.5 seconds.

“He is really a fierce competitor,” said Caldera coach Dirk Matthias. “He likes being in with other runners and having people around him and battling and strategizing. He’s got a big engine, he can turn on a big gear for those two laps.”

While Giessler has been the only boys champion for Caldera which opened in the fall of 2021, the program has suddenly grown and is ready to compete with the best the state has to offer.

Nearly a month into the season, the Wolfpack have proven to be some of the 5A’s top performers and although the program is just 4 years old, could be in for a successful season come late May.

“Charolette Richardson got this thing started,” said Matthais who is in his first year as the program’s head coach after taking over for Richardson. “It is an honor to be selected to continue on the work that she had done the first three years. Much of the credit of this program and its bones is from the work that Charlotte put in.”

Entering the weekend’s competitions, two athletes and one relay team have posted the top marks in the classification. Along with Giessler in the 800, senior Cohen Montoya holds the top time in the 200 (22.05). Giessler, Montoya along with senior Van Jackson and freshman Waylon Clarke ran 5A’s fastest 4×400 relay at the Oregon Relays last weekend (3:24.33).

“We’ve been working really hard in the (4×400 relay) since our freshman year,” Giessler said of the relay team. “We have pretty much had the same team, so that was a great accomplishment for us. We have been working for that since we were freshmen.”

Perhaps the Wolfpack’s deepest event is in the pole vault with three athletes all having cleared 13 feet. Senior Benjamin Sorenson, last year’s state runner up in the event, has the sixth best vault in 5A while senior Zachary Miller (14 feet) and senior Teague Myers (13-07) have the second and third highest vaults of the season.

“Those three boys are very solid athletes and very solid pole vaulters,” Matthias said. “It is a really unique squad and they have grown into exceptional pole vaulters.”

Senior Kian Beaird holds the fourth longest toss in the javelin (162-0), freshman Cooper Kanalos has the sixth furthest toss in the shot put (46-07).

Junior Mason Morical has the sixth-fastest time in the 1500 (4:00.37), Clarke has the second-fastest time in the 200 (22.29) while the 4×100 relay team of of Gaven Kvortek, Gage Vidali-Rood, Bronon Jones and Bradley Nobel have posted the fourth-fast time (43.53).

“I’m really excited for the season,” Giessler said. “There is a lot of talk about the future of the program, but we’ve been building up for three years, we’ve been getting beat at a lot of these meets and not finishing at the top. I feel like this is one of our biggest years, we have a lot of really fast kids.”