Perhaps no team was affected more by the storm delay on Saturday afternoon at the Drake Relays than the Ankeny girls’ track squad.
When the meet resumed a few hours later, the Hawkettes made the difficult decision to scratch out of two events.
“We decided to scratch the 4×100 relay and Drew (Beason) in the 1,500 because of the weather, long delay, and not enough time to return and warm up,” said Ankeny coach TJ Jumper. “Preventing injury is highly important at this time of the season as any injury would most likely prevent them from competing at conference, state qualifying and state.”
There was enough time, however, for Ankeny’s 4×400 relay to get ready to run. The preliminaries of that event had been postponed on Friday night due to another storm, forcing a timed final 24 hours later.
The foursome of Charlee Cibula, Morgan Johnson, Teagan Moyer and Lillian Buckley placed 13th in a season-best time of 3:59.30. Buckley, a freshman, ran the anchor leg in 58.16 seconds.
Pleasant Valley won the race in 3:51.51.
“The 4×400 was able to get in a warm up just in time and ran amazing,” Jumper said. “Each of the girls had big time improvements, and three of them– Lilly, Teagan and Charlee–competed in the high school division for the first time at Drake. Morgan ran a superb split, and we could not be happier how they were able to persevere through all the delays from Friday and Saturday nights.”
Earlier, Ankeny had posted the seventh-fastest qualifying time in the 4×100. The quartet of Ava Leinen, Buckley, Jayla Williams and Karsen Jacks posted a time of 49.11 seconds.
Waukee Northwest won the final in 47.89.
“Over the three days of the meet, we were extremely happy with how things came together up and down our lineup,” Jumper said. “The depth that we have is amazing. We are starting to put things together and really execute. This was evident with Drew in the 3,000 (on Thursday), the 4×100 running a great time and the 4×800.”
Ankeny also placed fifth in the 4×800 on Saturday with a time of 9:23.52, which ranks second on the school’s all-time list. Pleasant Valley won the race in 9:01.47, nearly becoming the first Iowa team to run under 9 minutes.
Makenna Madetzke ran the opening leg in 2:19.25 for the Hawkettes. Beason, Sophia Graber and Lauren Jackson ran the next three legs.
“We were really happy,” said Madetzke. “That’s one of the best times we’ve ran this season.”
Madetzke rebounded after suffering a mishap on Friday, when she fell down during the opening lap of the 800.
“I just had to forget about it,” Madetzke said. “I just tried to block it out of my mind this morning. Today was a completely different race, and I was just going to give it my all.”
In the 800, Madetzke still managed to place 14th in 2:19.71, which was close to her best time. Ani Wedemeyer of Pleasant Valley won the race in 2:09.31, edging Keelee Leitzen of Dubuque Hempstead by .43 seconds.
“I fell down on the backstretch,” Madetzke said. “(Waukee’s Emme Baugh VanZee) caught the back of my foot, and I just went completely down. She ended up getting DQ’d after the race.”
Also on Friday, Williams placed ninth in the long jump with a leap of 16 feet 6.75 inches. She finished 21st in the 100 hurdles in 15.99 seconds, while teammate Madeline Poock was 27th in that event in 16.29.
Williams hurried over to the long jump area after completing her race.
“I got out slow, but I ran all right. It’s pretty cold and rainy,” she said. “But it was good that I got to run before so that I didn’t have to go back and forth at least. I thought I jumped ok.”
Williams and Poock also ran in the preliminaries of the shuttle hurdle relay on Saturday. They teamed up with Lillian Smith and Ella Jumper to place ninth in 1:07.02, but only the top four times advanced to the final.
Ankeny competed in two other relays on Friday. The Hawkettes placed 17th in the sprint medley relay and 18th in the 4×200.
The team of Leinen, Buckley, Jacks and Johnson posted a time of 1:53.85 in the sprint medley relay. Waukee ran 1:46.53 to win the race, which was held in a downpour.
“It seemed fine out, and I thought we were going to get lucky (with the weather),” Johnson said. “It wasn’t raining at all and then for my race it just started pouring. And I couldn’t see the entire race, but it was fine.”
Johnson later combined with Smith, Buckley and Jacks to post a time of 1:45.48 in the 4×200. Waukee Northwest won the race in 1:40.46.
“The weather is kind of bad, so that kind of worsened our time,” Johnson said. “But overall, it was a good race. We had fun.”
Jumper was proud of the way his team dealt with some adversity throughout the meet.
“As a staff we were happy with all the performances as everyone either PR’d or was around their PR,” he said. “Anytime you are in a competition of this magnitude and an athlete is around their best or sets a new PR, it is a successful competition. Our athletes did that.
“The team also did a great job of supporting each other. Our alternates were prepared to compete as well and really had a team-first attitude,” he added.