While the Ankeny girls’ track team won five events in the CIML Iowa Conference meet on Wednesday, crosstown rival Ankeny Centennial earned a pair of victories and also had a good night at Waukee Northwest.
The host Wolves won the seven-team meet with 189 points. The Hawkettes placed second with 149.
“We had a very strong showing,” said Ankeny coach Thomas Cotter. “We knew our soccer players’ legs were likely going to be heavy after a hard-fought match against Centennial (on Tuesday). Tonight was about fine-tuning a few things as we head into the most important two weeks of the season. We feel really good about where we are at and the potential we have to put things together.”
Ames placed third with 140 points. The Jaguars finished fourth with 106.5.
Like Cotter, Centennial coach Andrew Kruzich said his team didn’t put a heavy emphasis on the meet.
“The track season runs Drake-CIML-state qualifier-state on consecutive weeks,” he said. “It’s important to compete for conference titles, but out of those four weeks, this is fourth in terms of emphasis. So we didn’t want to overrun someone like Rondi (Quass), who was coming off of a heavy Drake weekend. We also had our soccer girls coming off of an emotional, late-night game. So we had to be careful there.”
Both teams shined in the field events, where Ankeny got victories from Kendra Winfrey in the shot put (38 feet 10.5 inches) and Reagan Hanfelt in the high jump (5-3). Hannah Baier added a second-place finish in the discus with a throw of 111-11.
“The field events were just huge for us, and those girls are really hitting their stride,” Cotter said. “Our shot put, discus and high jump are setting up to score more points than many teams at the state meet.”
Centennial, meanwhile, got a huge night from Kambria Leazer. She won the long jump with a leap of 18 feet 6 inches, which broke the school record, and took second in the high jump at 5-2.
“Kam was the story of the night,” Kruzich said. “Coach Baxley had her running a new drill to get her hips lowered before she jumps. Her previous PR was 16-10. She popped 17-11 in the prelims, then 18-6 in the finals for a new school record. In all my years, I’ve never had an experienced jumper PR by over a foot, let alone a foot and a half. I guess the drill worked.”
The Jaguars’ other victory was provided by Anika Mohrhauser. She won the 3,000 in a time of 10:57.58, while Ankeny’s Paige Beason was the runner-up in 10:59.30.
“We had a good night overall,” Kruzich said. “Some nice surprises, like Anika in the 3,000–that’ll be a great memory for her. We were third in five relays. That’s kind of our story–not quite punching through against elite teams, but always hanging around, running well and running hard.”
Ankeny’s Sophie Loeffler won the 400 in a time of 1:00.96. Teammate Morgan Johnson was second in 1:01.21.
“Sophie is someone who we have had on our radar but with soccer and the 4×800 and open 800, we have just had a hard time finding time to get her in (the 400),” Cotter said. “She showed up in a big way tonight.”
Drew Beason took the 1,500 for the Hawkettes. She was clocked in 4:51.10.
Beason and Loeffler also teamed up with two other freshmen–Lauren Jackson and Alli Macke–to win the 4×800 relay. Ankeny posted a time of 9:33.16.
“That group had a very nice evening,” Cotter said. “They dropped 7 seconds and have much more to come.”
The Hawkettes later ended the meet with a second-place finish in the 4×400 relay. They turned in a time of 3:58.81, losing to Northwest by .12 seconds.
“That was an incredible race that came down to the very end,” Cotter said. “We feel like we are a 3:54ish (team) before it is all said and done. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
Because of the strong competition, Kruzich said there was no reason for his team to load up every event. Placing fourth for the Jaguars were Julia Flick in the 400 (1:02.14) and Olivia Kroska in the 400 hurdles (1:11.34).
“Most of our team hadn’t run in two weeks, and when we lost the Dowling meet we lost our usual last chance to look at some girls in some different spots,” he said. “So we decided to use CIML to do that. We stacked the (distance medley), we tried Julia in an open 400, Kylin (Smith) and Maraye (Breeding) in the 4×400, and so on, and ‘unloaded’ events like the 4×800 and the 4×200 that we might normally go after. We had to do it for our purposes, but knowing that Waukee Northwest, Ames, and Ankeny are all likely top-five finishers at state made the decisions easier.”