EG Heads to Guthrie for District Meet

TOP PERFORMERS MOVE ON TO STATE @ DRAKE



East Greene tracksters head to Guthrie Center today for the district track meet. The Hawks will be facing stiff competition in one of toughest of the state’s 12 district meets in Class 1A.

In addition to East Greene and the host school, Guthrie Center, other girls and boys teams competing in the co-ed district meet are Adair-Casey, CAM (Anita), Coon Rapids-Bayard, Des Moines Christian, Earlham, Griswold, Madrid, Orient-Macksburg, Van Meter, Woodward Academy (boys only) and Woodward-Granger.

The Hawks went head-to-head with seven of those teams in the recent West Central Conference meet, which Madrid won going away. EG and Madrid both competed in the district at Southeast Webster-Grand at Burnside last year. Madrid won that district and then went on to win the state meet in Des Moines. So this will be a very tough district as Madrid looks even stronger than last year. Griswold is another strong team, having finished fifth at the state meet last year and winning several large meets this year, including the Western Iowa Conference meet, its fourth conference crown in the last five years.

EG will get a good look at three of next year’s Rolling Hills Conference competitors in Adair-Casey, CAM and Orient-Macksburg at the meet today. Woodward Academy, which is strong in several boys sports, rounds out the 13-team field on the boys’ side.

The first- and second-place winners will advance to the state meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines on May 21 and 22.

In the girls meet, the same event is called a regional, and the winner of each event in the regional advances (12 total) to the state meet in Des Moines along with the 12 next best performances among all the regional competitors.

The Hawks tuned up for the district with meets last Thursday at Ballard (Huxley) and on Tuesday at Southern Cal (Lake City), a co-ed meet. Madrid was in the field with the Hawks in Class B at Ballard and won the event by one point over Roland-Story. It was a very competitive field with the returning state 1A champion (Madrid) and three solid class 2A teams—West Marshall, Roland-Story and South Hamilton.

EG scored 7 points with the 4 x 200 finishing fifth just behind Madrid. The three 2A teams swept the first three places in the 4 x 200 with West Marshall edging out Roland-Story at the tape for the win and both teams breaking the meet record.

Madrid took the 4 x 100 in another fast field as the Tigers (43.86) and the second- and third-place finishers, Roland-Story (43.89) and South Hamilton (44.03), all broke the meet record.

EG’s 4 x 100 relay finished fifth (48.96) and the 4 x 400 relay was sixth (4:11.75). Also finishing sixth were Reed Ostrander in the long jump (18-5.25) and Schyler Bardole in the shot put (39-8.5).

Jefferson-Scranton rolled to the title in Class A with 159 points, well ahead of runner-up Boone with 103.

Team scoring in Class B @ Ballard: Madrid 145, Roland-Story 144, West Marshall 120, South Hamilton 76, Woodward-Granger 49, Southeast Webster 13, EAST GREENE 7.

The Hawks finished 9th among 11 teams at Southern Cal with 22 points. The 4 x 100 relay improved its time to 47.96 for fifth with Woodward Academy wining the event in 44.66 and three Twin Lakes Conference teams finishing in the next three spots.

EG fared well in the field events as Wes Onken was third in the discus (129-02), Bardole fourth in the shot put (40-10) and Ostrander fifth in the long jump (17-4).

Bardole’s fourth place in the 100 meter dash (11.43) and Zach Hiller’s fourth place in the 200 meter dash (23.85) rounded out the scoring for the Hawks.

Boys team scoring @ Southern Cal: Woodward Academy 92, Manson-Northwest Webster 85, Prairie Valley 82, Rockwell City-Lytton 81, Southern Cal 69, Alta 44, Southeast Webster-Grand 35, Newell-Fonda 25, EAST GREENE 22, West Bend-Mallard/Twin River Valley 15, Paton-Churdan 8.

The Hawkettes were also in the field at Lake City and Bobbie Halterman took second in the 3,000 meter run (12:36.1) to give the Hawkettes 8 points. Stephanie Thompson of Paton-Churdan was fifth in the same event. PC’s Jaclyn Baldwin had a good showing with first place in the 100 meter dash (13.46) and fifth in the 400 meter dash (1:08.87). PC scored 14 points to finish just ahead of EG in eighth place in the nine-team field.

PC’s Taylor King had a mirror finish to Halterman, as he took second in the boys distance event, the 3,200 meter run (11.17.21), to give PC its eight points on the boys’ side.

Girls team scoring @ Southern Cal: Manson-Northwest Webster 177, Southern Cal 127, Guthrie Center 81.5, Rockwell City-Lytton 53, Southeast Webster-Grand 49.5, Alta 46, Newell-Fonda 29, Paton-Churdan 14, EAST GREENE 8.

EYE ON GJ SAYS: Halterman has really improved her times in recent meets and could contend for the top spot today at Guthrie and move on to state. She finished fourth at the conference meet behind Gabi Wilson of Des Moines Christian and two Panorama runners. The latter two will be in the 2A district, leaving Wilson and Halterman the top two place finishers among the eight West Central teams that are in the field at Guthrie. Wilson had a considerable lead over Halterman at that meet, 11:46.01 to 13:15.38 but Halterman has really dropped her time in just a week with her 12:36.1 showing at Lake City on Tuesday. The fastest time at the Rolling Hills Conference meet on May 3 on the same track was 12:33.86 by Chansea Nelson of Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira but EHK/E is in the district meet at Audubon. Griswold does not have a threat in the 3,000 so it should come down to Halterman and Wilson. Hopefully it will be a fast pace, so if Halterman should come in second or third, she could still qualify with a good at-large time.

The Hawks are solid in several key sprint events, but unfortunately, in each of those events Madrid has dominated. The Madrid-EG finish of fourth and fifth places in the 4 x 200 at Ballard was separated by five seconds, so EG has a pretty big gap to fill to catch up to the Tigers today in the district. Neither EG or Woodward Academy were in the field at Southern Cal on Tuesday so it’s hard to determine how Woodward Academy might fare in the event.

Woodward Academy will be solid competition to Madrid in the 4 x 100 as its time at Lake City is less than a second slower than Madrid’s time in Huxley. EG was three seconds behind Woodward Academy (47.67 to 44.66) and Madrid had a full five-second advantage over the Hawks at Ballard last week. In the conference meet, it was Madrid, Earlham, Panorama and EG taking the top four spots, so with Panorama out of the mix it looks like Madrid will be the heavy favorite with a number of teams jockeying for second place and the right to move on to state. Adair-Casey posted a time of 47.26 in winning the 4 x 100 in the Rolling Hills meet on the Guthrie track. Underwood won the Western Iowa Conference meet in 44.99 and Griswold was third with a time two seconds slower. So look for AC and Griswold to be in the mix for second place along with EG, Earlham and Woodward Academy.

Underwood was also the winner in the 4 x 200 relay at the WIC meet. Griswold though does not appear to be strong in that event but is pretty significant in the 4 x 400 and 1,600 medley relays. Orient-Macksburg won the 4 x 200 relay in the Rolling Hills meet at 1:40.72 so they will be a team to contend with for the Hawks, who ran 1:40.2 in their conference meet on the same track a day later. Madrid was disqualified in that event and Earlham and Guthrie Center finished 1-2 with times of 1:36.27 and 1:36.38. Panorama and West Central Valley finished 3-4 so they will not be a threat since they are in the 2A district at Tri-Center (Neola). EG will also have to contend with Woodward-Granger. EG had the advantage at the conference meet by 1.18 seconds and stayed ahead in the “battle of the Hawks” at Ballard but the difference had been whittled down to just .05 seconds.

Onken in the discus, Bardole in the shot put, and Ostrander in the long jump have all performed well this season with high placings in most meets, but again, Madrid has solid performers in all these events. Madrid’s Eric Simmons and Brock Hinkel were second and third in the conference meet in the discus. The winner was Seth VandeVoort from Des Moines Christian and the fourth place thrower was Andrew McCune from Woodward-Granger. Onken finished fifth, nine feet behind the WG thrower, so he will really need to uncork a all-out effort to finish first or second and move on to state.

Bardole will again be going up against Simmons and Tyler Ahrens of Madrid in the shot put. They took second and fourth in the conference meet and WG’s McCune’s third, just ahead of Colton Greer of Coon Rapids-Bayard (44-2.5) and Bardole (43-3.5) in fifth and sixth places among the 19 throwers. The winner was from Panorama, so that could be an advantage to one of the next five placings. Simmons made it to state last year and he threw 48-11 at the conference meet with the other four all within a 2.5-foot range of each other, from 45-10 to 43-3.5. Dayton Amdor of CAM is also solid as he won the Rolling Hills shot put crown at 46-10, and Demetrius Lloyd of Woodward Academy was second at Southern Cal on Tuesday at 43-0.5 while Bardole was fourth at 40-10.

Ostrander was just three inches from taking second at the conference meet. Madrid’s Nick Elfcamp, who is also a sprinter, took the event with a leap of 20-05 followed by Danny Clinton of DMC (18-11), Kaden Bruden of Van Meter (18-10.5 ), and Onken (18-8). Brendon McGinnis of Earlham and Jorge Spears of Woodward Academy are also competitive in this event. Elfcamp finished sixth at the state meet last year.

Jessie Priest will be going up against Michael Plasencia of Van Meter and Jeremy Johnson of Madrid in the 400 meter dash. Bardole ran a fast 11.42 at Lake City Tuesday after running 12.24 in the conference meet a week before, a time topped only by district competitors Louie Wickett of Madrid and Josh Arment of DMC. However, two of the three faster times at Lake City were posted by runners from Woodward Academy and AC’s Josh Cummings won the 100 at the RHC meet in 11.8, so Bardole will need to show even more improvement in this very strong field today at Guthrie. Wickett, who place sixth in the 100 at the state meet last year, won the conference meet in 11.21 and then posted an 11.16 at Ballard, good for second behind Aaron Arment of West Marshall, a 2A school.

While Madrid looks to be the hands-down favorite among the boys with most likely Griswold to finish second and Woodward Academy to take third, the situation is not nearly as clear-cut on the girls’ side. In a WIC meet sweep, Griswold also won the girls’ title, but Woodward-Granger has been particularly strong all season, finishing just 17 points behind WCC track power Panorama, the closest any team has come to the Lady Panthers in years. Earlham and Guthrie Center have also had strong meets this season, as had Des Moines Christian. So look for WG and Griswold to go head-to-head for the team championship.

While all eight 1A teams from the West Central are competing at Guthrie and the two 2A schools are at Tri-Center, the eight track teams in the Rolling Hills are all over the map. While CAM, AC and Orient-Macksburg are at Guthrie, Glidden-Ralston, Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira, and Walnut are at Audubon. Paton-Churdan heads to Burnside to compete with the same Twin Lakes 1A teams that were in Tuesday’s Lake City meet (SWG, RCL, MNW and Southern Cal) along with seven teams from north central and northern Iowa and Colo-Nesco from the other side of Ames. Iowa Christian/Ankeny Christian (a shared program) heads to Martensdale-St. Mary’s along with Grandview Park Baptist of Des Moines. The rest of the field is from southern Iowa.

Jefferson-Scranton will be among the favorites in an eight-team boys 3A district meet in Atlantic after winning the Heart of Iowa-Large and several other large meets with 3A teams this season. Perry will compete in the 3A district at Dallas Center-Grimes, and Ogden will host Prairie Valley (Gowrie) and 10 other teams in a 2A district meet.