Friday’s trip to the Sunflower State produced some solid results for the Ankeny girls’ track team.
The Hawkettes won three events and placed second overall in the 13-team field at the Emporia State (Kan.) High School Relays with 128 points. Olathe (Kan.) North won the meet with 169 points.
“Our purpose for attending this meet matches our program’s vision of our team experiencing big-time track and field,” said Ankeny coach TJ Jumper. “We were able to compete against teams from Missouri and Kansas and see some events we don’t have in Iowa. We had athletes experience the javelin, triple jump and steeplechase. It was fun to watch the team enjoy these new experiences. This also allowed some awesome team-bonding opportunities.”
Ankeny’s Reagan Hanfelt won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 6 inches, which tied her own school record. Teammate Mila Bandillo, a freshman, cleared the bar at 5-2 to earn runner-up honors.
“Reagan met the Drake Relays Blue Oval Standard and had two near-misses at 5-8,” Jumper said.
Drew Beason won the 1,600 with a time of 5:13.32. The Hawkettes also captured the 4×800 relay in 9:54.70.
Jayla Williams placed third in the long jump with a leap of 16-11. She took fourth in both the 200 (26.48) and the 100 hurdles (15.58).
“Jayla placed in three events, and two of them were brand new events for her,” Jumper said.
Morgan Johnson placed third in the 400 in 1:02.56. Teammate Teagan Moyer was fourth in the same event in 1:03.14.
Ella Schulz took third in the 2,000 steeplechase in 8:46.21, while Ava Tomlinson finished third in the shot put with a throw of 32 feet 1/2 inch. Lillian Buckley was fourth in the 300 hurdles in 47.61.
Ankeny also placed second in the 4×400 relay in 4:11.56.
“We have been training really hard the last two weeks, and we entered the meet thinking we would have limited PRs,” Jumper said. “Our focus was on competing with toughness. As a coaching staff, the team’s performance surpassed our expectations. The returning contributors showed off their improvement, and some of our new athletes to the varsity showed us what they could do.
“They competed against top state placers from Kansas, and we are excited about how fiercely they competed,” he added.