The Ankeny girls’ track team racked up seven victories while placing second overall in the Ankeny Quadrangular on Tuesday at Ankeny Stadium.
Valley won the meet with 113 points. Ankeny finished with 102 points, followed by Ames with 92 and Indianola with 83.
“It was a great night,” said Ankeny coach TJ Jumper. “We were really purposeful and not overloading anyone in order to give some athletes the opportunity to attempt to qualify for Drake. Others we had focused on training, and with many of our younger athletes we were emphasizing experiences. We had a couple of our younger runners get their first varsity competition.”
Ankeny’s Lillian Buckley won the 400 hurdles in a time of 1:06.91. She also placed third in the 100 in 13.53.
“Lilly ran a super time in the hurdles for her first time running it this year,” Jumper said. “She is ahead of where she was last year at this time.”
Makenna Madetzke took the 800 in a time of 2:23.09. Teammate Sophia Graber was third in that event in 2:25.54.
Those two also teamed up with Reagan Prendergast and Gillian Schramm to win the 4×800 relay. The Hawkettes were clocked in 9:35.72.
“It was exciting to see Reagan run a fast split in that relay since she has worked so hard after missing last season with an injury,” Jumper said. “It was also fun to watch Gillian run a 7-second PR with her split.”
Drew Beason captured the 3,000 in a time of 10:42.13. She won the race by nearly 50 seconds.
Freshman Morgan Fisher took the 400 in 59.15 seconds.
“Morgan now has a top-15 time in the state in multiple sprint races,” Jumper said.
Reagan Hanfelt won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 2 inches. Teammate Mila Badillo was the runner-up at 5-0.
Ankeny’s other victory came in the 4×200 relay. The quartet of Charlee Cibula, Quinn Roush, Gracie Lindaman and Riley Kayser posted a time of 1:50.39.
Cibula placed second in the 200 in 27.40. She also teamed up with Ava Leinen, Kayser and Morgan Conklin to place second in the 4×100 relay in 52.56.
“We really take the long approach and use these early and weekday meets to develop athletes for the championship part of the season and for the future,” Jumper said. “As a team, we are very process driven. As coaches we challenged the team (Monday) about having a champion’s mindset and to really compete with effort and determination.
“Our team accomplished that today,” he added.