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Holmen High School senior Eric Gunderson finished third among underclassmen in the 300-meter hurdles at last spring's Division 1 state track and field meet. Gunderson will finally get a chance to see if he can fulfill that potential this weekend at UW-La Crosse.

Gunderson enters as the eighth-seed based upon his sectional personal-record time of 39.71 seconds. Defending champion Zach Ketner of Milwaukee Marshall is the top seed off his sectional time of 38.5 seconds, but with no one else running at sectionals under 39 seconds, Gunderson seems to have a legitimate shot to at-worst reach the top six and post-race awards stand.

“He'll have to run well to reach the podium,” Holmen head coach Steve King said. “But the experience of being there last year should help him. He was pretty nervous a year ago and now he'll know what to expect.”

Gunderson was hurt by having to run in the far outside ninth lane in last year's finals. Running in the far outside lane hurts a runners perspective as to where he is in relation to the field until the final straightaway due to the race's staggered start.

“We'd like to get to the finals again, and whatever lane he ends up is fine,” King said. “But the experience should take away some of that disadvantage if that's where he does indeed end up.”

King talked after last year's state meet of Gunderson needing to get stronger, improving his technique and learning to race better. King said Monday that Gunderson has done most of those things in the last 51 weeks.

“He's gotten stronger, he's maintained speed and his technique has gotten a little better going over the hurdles,” King said. “The key for him is the middle 100 meters. Once he gets over the corner, he has great finishing speed for the final 100 meters.

“He ran the middle 100 well at regionals (39.77 seconds) despite the better time at sectionals. He still hasn't run the perfect race and has huge upside. Being under 39.5 (seconds) in the preliminaries (Friday) should set him up in good position for the finals (Saturday).”

Gunderson also seems to have some shot to break the 20-year old school record of 39.12 seconds owned by Chuck Mahlum from 1988. Gunderson broke 40 seconds in the race for the first time at regionals.

Nick Kannel finished his career with a personal-record of 51.01 seconds in the open 400 at sectionals May 22 at Empire Stadium. But it was only good for fifth place and was .89 of a second short of the third and final state spot from the meet.

Holmen's 4X400 relay team of Kannel, Mitch Johnson, Ely Finucane and Gunderson was fifth at sectionals in 3 minutes, 27.24 seconds, 4.6 seconds short of third. Mike Behringer keyed a 6-8 finish with Alex Kerkman in the mile, with Behringer finishing in 4:30.47 and Kerkman coming home in 4:49.23. Madison LaFollette's Alex Brill was third in 4:19.62.

Brandon Beilke was seventh in the discus with a top toss of 137 feet, 7 inches, 15-7 short of third. Jesse Tiedt was seventh in the triple jump at 41 feet, 9 1/2 inches, more than two feet short of third. The Vikings 4X800 relay team of Mike Priem, Mike Borden, Cameron Olson and Kerkman were eighth in 8:39.98 in a loaded field in which fifth-place Madison East was eighth in the state and sixth-place Onalaska was .22 of a second short of the top eight.