It was a fun night to be a Comet track fan last Thursday as both the West Liberty boys’ and girls’ track teams found paths to victory in multiple events at the Tiger Relays in Tipton.
The boys found three victories, and a handful of top threes, en route to a fifth place finish while the girls were victorious in two events and placed sixth overall.
On the boys’ side, the hurdlers continue to dominate the competition.
Junior Ryker Dengler won the 400-meter hurdles in 56.91 seconds and took second place in the 110-meter hurdles in 15.81 seconds.
Dengler ran the third leg on the winning 4x110 shuttle hurdle relay, flanked by senior Jayce McHugh and juniors Seth Axsom and Cameron Iske.
Axsom, Dengler and McHugh were joined by sophomore Owen Daufeldt to win the 4x200 meter relay in 1:34.06 — a full six seconds faster than the second-place team — for the final West Liberty boys’ victory of evening.
There were a bevy of third-place efforts as well, including the 4x100 relay team of Axsom, Daufeldt, McHugh and junior Jonathan Cardona completing their race in 46.21 seconds.
Also on the short track, Daufeldt placed third in the open 200 event in 24.17 seconds while McHugh crossed the finish line third in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.25 seconds.
Rounding out placements inside the top five was freshman Enrique Michel’s 17-03.50 leap in the long jump as well as freshman Briggs Collins’ 11.72 second sprint in the individual 100-meter dash.
Overall, the Comets took fifth place out of seven schools in Tipton with 63 team points. Taking the top four spots on Thursday was Iowa City, City High (139 team points), Tipton (117), Durant (103) and Mid-Prairie (84).
Hall and the hurdles
The Comet girls also found success on Thursday, joining the boys in a sweep of the shuttle hurdle relay.
Posting a time of 1:13.81, the Comet crew of senior Laney Esmoil, sophomores Alyssa Lenz, Jayleen Kivi and freshman Liv Garcia were on their game.
In the individual hurdles, Esmoil took third place (17.93 seconds) and Lenz took fifth place (18.15 seconds).
Garcia also nabbed fifth place in the 400-meter hurdles (1:21.20).
Freshman Sully Hall also dominated her competition beating the field in the long jump by one clear foot. Her winning jump was 17-00.25.
Also posting crooked numbers in the point column were the sprint medley team to kick off the evening.
The team of Hall, junior Ava Morrison, and freshmen Chandler Gingerich and Brynn Cassady placed fourth with a time of 5:04.50.
Inside the discus cage, sophomore Mallory Wulf placed fifth with a throw of 90-01 feet while senior Amerie Alvarado was not far behind with her best throwing coming in at an even 85 feet.
Completing the list of top five finishers was the 4x800 meter relay team of junior Mia Gingerich and freshmen Addison Guerra, Stella Elder and Madelyn Deahr. They crossed the finish line in 12:59.72.
On the team leaderboard, Mid-Prairie (183 team points) and Tipton (173) were head and shoulders above the field as the only schools over 100 team points.
Making up the rest of the eight-school competition was Durant (91), Northeast (74), Camanche (62), West Liberty (57), Iowa City Liberty (48) and Iowa City, City High (31).