Despite some hiccups, the Ankeny Centennial girls’ track team earned a second-place finish in the Craig Oldham Invitational on Tuesday at Johnston.
Waukee easily won the meet for the third straight year. The Jaguars edged Iowa City West by one point for the runner-up spot in the eight-team field.
“It was an up and down night, literally,” said Centennial coach Andrew Kruzich. “We are trying to navigate another week of bad weather and whatever other conflicts pop up. This week we lose kids Thursday and Saturday for a band trip, and for some reason there was a jazz band concert (on Tuesday), too. It’s been hard to establish any kind of rhythm.”
Centennial did not win any events, but had nine second-place finishes. Betsy Ridout was the runner-up in the long jump with a leap of 15 feet 8 inches, and she also teamed up with Karri Pippett, Calea Jones and Katie Saddoris to take second in the 4×200 relay in 1:48.84.
Also placing second were Saddoris in the 200, Pippett in the 400 hurdles and Katie Petersen in the 100 hurdles. Pippett posted a season-best time of 1:09.22.
“We ran a very strong 4×200, and Karri came back to run her season PR,” Kruzich said. “Both of those events are borderline Drake (Relays) qualifiers, but we will have to improve on them in order to be safe to get in.”
The Jaguars placed second in the 4×800 relay with a time of 9:50.23. That team consisted of Savana Alt, Kathryn Vortherms, Emma Gordon and Megan Gray.
Vortherms, Gordon and Gray later teamed up with Claire Wubben to place second in the 4×400 relay in 4:13.04.
“We went into the night hoping to run Drake or near-Drake times in the 4×800, shuttle hurdle, 4×200, 400 lows, 4×100 and 4×400,” Kruzich said. “We dropped 5 seconds in the 4×800 and look strong in that event, in part due to Megan’s best 800 of the season. She had a nice drop and was feeling appropriately pumped afterward. She also anchored our 4×400 to a 7-second season PR at the end of the night, so she was big in both races. I’m really happy for her. Emma was on both of those relays, too, running a nice leg on the 4×400 to help us get that drop.”
However, there were some disappointments as well. The Jaguars fell en route to a second-place finish in the shuttle hurdle relay, and they dropped the baton in the 4×100.
“Those can be good events for us, and the 4×100 is safe for Drake, but they are good examples of how hard it’s been to get technically sound this year with not only meet cancellations, but poor weather for practice, too,” Kruzich said.
Here are some of Centennial’s other scoring events:
400–Jordan Su, 1:07.43 (4th).
800–Alt, 2:32.26 (6th).
100 hurdles–Meg Ridout, 17.61 (3rd).
1,500–Jeanne Peters, 5:08.78 (3rd).
400 hurdles–Ellie Wilson, 1:13.60 (5th).
High jump–Jones, 4-10 (tied for 3rd); Petersen, 4-8 (5th).
Shot put–Maxine Schulz, 33-11.5 (5th).