The Ankeny Centennial girls’ track team won a pair of relays and placed fifth overall among seven squads in the Craig Oldham Invitational on Tuesday at Johnston.
The Jaguars, who also got a victory from Ava Barten in the 400 hurdles, finished with 70 points. Barten posted a time of 1:07.01 to edge Alayna Schulte of Waukee Northwest by .40 seconds.
“We had a nice night of competition,” said Centennial coach Tyler Asbe. “It is a busy week for us with three meets so it was a night where we had a good mix of varsity and JV on the track and in the field events. We love these meets where we can have most of our squad competing, and our coaching staff was really happy with the effort every athlete brought–especially coming off of prom weekend for a lot of our athletes.”
Northwest captured the team title for the fourth straight year, racking up 143.5 points. Dowling Catholic was the runner-up with 110 points.
Centennial won the 4×200 relay in a time of 1:46.54. That team consisted of Kylin Smith, Aly Drefke, Aly Balashaitis and Anna Woods.
Woods also placed second in the high jump. She cleared the bar at 5 feet 2 inches.
The Jaguars took the 4×800 relay in a time of 9:42.61. That team was comprised of Bella Hodges, Ellie Blevins, Anika Mohrhauser and Cora DenHartog.
Hodges added a runner-up finish in the 1,500. She was clocked in 4:51.11.
Centennial also placed second in the distance medley relay. The foursome of Kacy Olson, Bailey Snyder, Ellie Pollock and Tallie Plueger posted a time of 4:33.94.
“We had season-best times in the 4×2 and 4×1 and had strong performances in many other events as well,” Asbe said. “It is awesome to have girls seeing improvements this time of year and see the continued hard work they are putting in to continue to build into the second half of our season.”