Central girls track refuses to wilt in heat, qualifies for state in five events
Grace Kuehl passes the baton to Jaydin Dettman in the sprint medley relay at districts. It was one of five Warrior events that qualified for state. (Photos by Bev Hamann)
Taylor Moser goes all out in the shuttle hurdle relay at the district meet.
Tori Sylvester ran in the 100 meter dash on May 12.
Kaitlyn Wiley grabs the baton from Grace Kuehl during the 4x200, one of three relays in which Central qualified for state.
Tori Sylvester, Grace Kuehl, Kaitlyn Wiley and Hannah Asche earned a trip to state after winning the 4x200 meter relay at districts.
Jaydin Dettman, Delaney Scherf, Kaitlyn Wiley and Hannah Asche punched their ticket to state in the 4x400.
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
It was another bad weather day for the Central girls track team at the qualifying meet in Edgewood-Colesburg, but it was no match for the Warriors who outdid expectations finishing in third place, 78 points as a team, and advancing to State in five different events.
“Once again weather decided to butt in and try to break our spirit, but our girls held true to their determination to not let outside factors affect their outcomes. We tried to plan as best we could for the heat and wind and then do our best to compete as hard as we could each and every event. We did a great job with that. We had seven personal records, which were hard to come by with the brutal conditions, five season bests, scored more points than I had penciled out before the meet and ultimately qualified five events for the state meet next week,” coach Martha Bauder said.
The five events heading to the State meet at Drake University from May 19–21, include two victorious relay teams from the qualifying meet. The 4x400-meter relay team consisting of Jaydin Dettman, Delaney Scherf, Kaitlyn Wiley, and Hannah Asche finished the race in 4:13.37, a solid three seconds ahead of the second place finishers ,and they head into the State meet ranked as the number one team. The other relay group to make it was the 4x200-meter relay with Tori Sylvester, Grace Kuehl, Wiley, and Asche who won the race in less than half a second over North Linn. They head to State ranked ninth overall. Both relay teams finished in season best times. Asche also heads to State individually after winning the 200-meter dash in a photo finish over Ella Aulwes from Edgewood-Colesburg, while Dettman just missed qualifying with a fourth place finish in the 200-meter. Asche heads to State ranked in 13th.
In the other two events, the Warriors qualified on time. One of those events was the 800-sprint medley with Sylvester, Kuehl, Dettman, and Scherf, which finished in fourth place, making their way to State ranked in 24th. The other event was the 800-meter run where Scherf ran a season best time 2:33.36 to finish comfortably in fourth place. Scherf is currently ranked 19th.
When it comes to the rest of the results, the Warriors might not have produced wins, but they produced points. In the 4x800-meter relay, Eva Embretson, Reese Berns, Keeley Curran, and Alexis Thiese finished in sixth giving the Warriors three points. They followed that with a fourth place finish in the 4x100-meter shuttle hurdle relay with Lexi Loan, Gracie Cummer, Taylor Moser, and Wiley who earned five points. The Warriors missed out on points in the 100-meter dash by a slim margin, as Kuehl and Sylvester finished in 11th and 12th, respectively, both less than two-tenths of a second from cracking into the top 10. The Warriors did add a top 10 in the distance medley relay with Tessa Sylvester, Haley Mueller, Staci Herman, and Alexis Thiese.
The points kept coming in the 400-meter dash when Dettman finished a hard fought third for six points, as teammate Embretson finished in 15th. While there were no points earned in the 100-meter hurdles, both Loan, who finished in ninth and Berns, who ran in 14th, did achieve personal record times, as Loan finished in 18.51 and Berns in 19.30. In the 400-meter hurdles, it was personal record times and points for the Warriors, as Taylor Moser’s sixth place finish in 1:15.46 was a personal record and earned two points, while Wiley ran the race in 1:12.93, finishing in third for six points. The relay success brought another four points to the team total when Tori Sylvester, Mueller, Kuehl, and Asche, who finished fifth in the 4x100 meter relay, earning four points.
The field events brought even more points and personal records, starting in the shot put, where Scherf achieved a personal record mark of 31-00.00, finishing in ninth, and in the discus, Herman also hit a personal record mark with 73-00, which put her in 13th. In the long jump, Cummer finished in 14th, as Loan jumped her way into eighth for one point, and in the high jump, it was a three-way tie for fifth that included Loan and Brooke Tieden who both cleared 4-04.00 and each earned three points.
The Warriors heading to State will, in the words of coach Bauder, “do our best to prepare, compete well and move up the ranks if we can.”
