A funny thing happened on their journey to eastern New York state — they qualified for the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Eugene, Oregon.

Senior Rider Carlson, juniors Ethan Verbosky and Ty Kraft, and sophomore Ty Oste will head to Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon next week to see how they stack up against the country’s best high school squads.

“These boys are awesome racers. They want to win and they pull it off. They’ve got the hard work underneath them and the years of consistency. … They’ve got the mindset that they are capable of it,” Maple Grove head coach Jennifer Micek said prior to practice Wednesday afternoon. ” … They believe in themselves … in a humble way. They are not full of themselves at all. They are hard-working, hungry athletes, and a wonderful group to coach.”

The Nike Nationals will take place Wednesday, June 18 through Sunday, June 22. Maple Grove’s 4-by-400-meter relay qualified for the Emerging Elite Division, which will hold its final Sunday, June 22 at 2:06 p.m. The Red Dragons’ seed time is 3:27.32 — the time to automatically qualify was set at 3:30.00.

Pictured, from left, are: Maple Grove’s Ty Kraft, Rider Carlson, Ethan Verbosky and Ty Oste after winning the Section VI Class D 1,600-meter relay title last month. Submitted photo

“The thought of running on that track at all is amazing. It’s probably one of the world’s most well-known tracks. There are so many great events and meets that happen there,” Carlson said. “It’s an honor to go there as a small school, especially with a relay, to get four guys together and be in that tier of teams.”

But first, Carlson and company will tackle the state championships this weekend at Middletown High School. The Red Dragons are seeded fifth in Class C, just over a second behind No. 1 seed James I. O’Neill.

“These boys have that hungry drive. They’ve already broken their own record this season and they want to break it again,” Micek said. “They are not satisfied at all. … They want to be the best they can be.”

Oste is the leadoff runner for the relay with a personal-best split time of 51.5 seconds and a PR in his own 400 of 52.2.

“I just have to give us a good start and make sure I’m at least top three to give our second leg a good start for his run,” Oste said.

“Last year was Ty Oste’s first year on the team and he just completed the foursome — the perfect piece to the puzzle,” Micek added. “He is a good starter, so we knew we wanted him at the beginning.”

Kraft, who competed in a number of events this spring, but not the individual 400 meters, has a best split time of 53.0 seconds.

“The middle of the race is when the competition is still pretty fast,” Kraft said. “My goal is just to stay with at least the top two so Rider can (run) them down on the third leg.”

“He has a lot of hard events during a league meet. He’s got 400 hurdles and 100 hurdles, and sometimes the 4-by-8 as well. By the time he gets to the 4-by-4, he just has to do his job,” Micek said of Kraft. ” … He has the endurance and the strength to pull that off. He’s one of the pins we couldn’t do without.”

Carlson, the lone senior on the squad, runs the third leg. His personal-best split time is 50.8 seconds and best 400 is 51.6.

“Right after the Dunkirk Invite, we were down a man and still ran a great time,” Carlson said when asked when he knew this relay could be special. “Just seeing how everyone has grown and gotten faster, we’ve seen everybody really progress.”

The anchor is Verbosky, who competed in the 800 meters at the state meet a season ago. He will again compete in the 800 on Friday this year and the 1,600 meters on Saturday. Verbosky has also qualified to compete in the 800 meters in Oregon.

“If he does well in that 800, he’ll do well in the next one. … If he doesn’t do great in the 800 and doesn’t finish how he wants to, that will fire him up for the next one,” Micek said. “Either way, he’ll use that to his advantage.”

Verbosky’s personal-best time in the 400 meters is 50.5 seconds with a best split time of 49.6 seconds.

“I always try to get him in first place,” Carlson said, “but with Ethan anywhere in the top two or three, he can make some magic happen.”

“I believe I can catch them if he gives me enough space between them,” Verbosky added.

Junior Owen Erlandson will be the alternate this weekend and likely take over Carlson’s spot next year when the group looks for more state and national accolades.

The quartet broke a 27-year-old Maple Grove record earlier this season at the Super 8 Meet of Champions in Salamanca with a clocking of 3:28.67. That mark broke the previous record of 3:31, set by Jarod Masci, Joe Gustafson, John Vogan and Josh Liddell in 1998.

“As soon as we hit that qualifying time, Ethan came running to me across the field and said ‘We qualified for nationals!’ … and I said ‘Let’s go,'” Micek said of the trip to Oregon. Three of the boys will leave Thursday with Carlson leaving Friday. “It just had to happen.”

Micek credits a group of five seniors on the 2022 team — David Marshall, Sam Eimiller, Lukas Baer, R.J. Helt and Hal Svetanics — for molding this year’s relay into the student-athletes they are today.

“This has been coming for a long time. These guys just a short time ago were the little guys on the team. They were looking up to the then-seniors. At that time we had ‘Big Bros’ — these guys were the ‘Little Bros,'” Micek said. ” … These guys have surpassed all of their mentors even though their mentors were awesome, too.

“It’s really fun for me to be the one who gets to watch them go from the Little Bro to the track star,” she added, “even surpassing their own expectations of what they could do.”

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A GoFundMe account has been set up at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-red-dragons-compete-at-nike-nationals to assist with travel expenses for the Red Dragosn relay heading to Eugene, Oregon, next week.