Dealing with a day delay for a meet as big as the River Valley Conference meet is never easy, but the West Liberty track and field teams made the best of a tough situation during last Friday’s races at Monticello High School.
The boys’ team placed tenth with 41 team points while the girls scored 11 team points and finished in 14th place.
The boys, as they have all season, were led by dynamite hurdle and sprint relay teams.
It’s no surprise to find them at the top of the leaderboard, especially the hurdle crew which won gold at this year’s event.
Setting a new season-best by one-thousandth of a second (1:01.77), the team of senior Jayce McHugh and juniors Seth Axsom, Cameron Iske and Ryker Dengler is on top of the conference. They were a full two seconds faster than the contingent from Durant which placed second.
Dengler also shined in the individual hurdle events, taking second in the 110-meters (15.79 seconds) and third in the 400-meters (57.13 seconds).
In the sprint relays, the 4x200 team of Axsom, McHugh, Dengler and sophomore Owen Daufeldt took second with a time of 1:32.98, a tenth of a second from a season-best effort.
The 4x100 team of Axsom, Daufeldt, McHugh and junior Jonathan Cardona did set a season-best time with a run in 45.29 seconds, which was good for third place.
West Liberty only scored points in one other event — the 800-meter sprint medley. It was a season-best time (1:37.32) by three and a half seconds from Cardona, Daufeldt, Axsom and sophomore Ramzes Moran. It earned them a sixth-place finish.
On the team side, Bellevue won the meet with 86 team points. They were followed by Monticello (78), Maquoketa (74), Camanche (66) and Mid-Prairie (63) in the top five.
Not their day
The West Liberty girls had a tougher day on the track, scoring points in just three events.
Despite this, freshman Sully Hall continued her outstanding season with a third-place finish in the long jump. Her 15-09.50 leap was two and three inches behind the Wilton girls who took first and second.
Fellow freshman Brynn Cassady also scored in this event, taking eighth place with a jump of 14-08.75.
The other two scoring events were in the hurdles. It was the Comets’ 4x100 hurdle team taking sixth in 1:14.25 as well as sophomore Alyssa Lenz placing eighth in the individual 100-meter event with a time of 17.80 seconds.
Tipton won the girls’ meet for the first time in school history with 114 team points. Maquoketa took second with 104 team points while Mid-Prairie was right behind with 102.
SQM preview
Next up for the West Liberty track and field teams is, what hopefully turns out to be, the penultimate event of the high school season.
As if it was a reward for winning on Friday, Tipton will host this year’s 2A state qualifying meet for area schools.
These include Anamosa, Camanche, Cascade, Durant, Louisa-Muscatine, Monticello, Northeast, Iowa City Regina, West Branch, West Liberty and Wilton.
Field events will start at 4 p.m. with track events beginning around 4:45 p.m.
For state meet qualification purposes, the Class 2A rules state that the top two place winners in each event, as well as the next eight best times across the state, will get to run at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.