The Ankeny boys’ track team focused on a handful of events during the Fred Smith Hawk Relays on Tuesday at Ankeny Stadium.
The Hawks, who didn’t even enter three of the relays, won four events and placed fifth overall in the 10-team field. They finished with 73 points.
Dowling Catholic and Waukee each scored 110 points to tie for the team title.
“It was a very good meet all around,” said Ankeny coach Jordan Mullen. “We brought a big group of our athletes, and it was a lot of fun to watch them compete on what turned out to be a very nice night!”
Ankeny closed out the meet with a victory in the 4×400 relay. The foursome of Tate Brownsberger, Isaiah Smith, Ethan Zuber and Nicholas Robie won the race in a time of 3:23.99, edging Indianola by .26 seconds.
“That distance 4×4 is starting to put some speed together,” Mullen said. “They are having a ton of fun with that, and it’s showing by their time! We hope to be able to run that one or two more times for some good speed work moving into the second half of the season!”
The Hawks earlier defeated runner-up Indianola by a much bigger margin in the 4×800 relay, winning by nearly 14 seconds. The quartet of Justice Rathje, Smith, Robie and Zuber was clocked in 7:52.09.
Both the 4×400 and 4×800 units met the Blue Oval standard for the Drake Relays.
“The 4×8 stole the show!” Mullen said. “It was awesome watching those boys go out and do what they did! We had a great pep talk. We were missing one piece to a very nice quartet, and that piece is no longer missing! Justice steps up and gives us a sub-2 minute split to start that relay off, and the rest of the team followed in suit!”
Ankeny posted a 1-2 finish in the 110 hurdles. Hayden Carlson won the race in 14.29 seconds, while teammate Landon Pote was second in 14.76.
Ryan Tomlinson provided the team’s other win in the shot put, where he recorded a throw of 50 feet 2 inches. He edged Waukee’s Andrew Hine by two inches.
Tomlinson also placed fourth in the discus. He had a toss of 150-0 in that event.
Ankeny’s Carter Follmuth placed second in the long jump. He recorded a leap of 19 feet 5.5 inches.
The Hawks got a fourth-place finish from Tyler Sickerson in the 100. Sickerson posted a time of 10.97 seconds.
“We are getting a few more pieces back, which is very exciting for us moving forward at this point in the season!” Mullen said.
Brownsberger anchored Ankeny to a fourth-place finish in the distance medley relay. He teamed up with Mykal Johnson, Dylan Panther and Isaiah Swanson to post a time of 3:51.08.
“All around the team did an amazing job, and we had great energy–that’s what got me going the most,” Mullen said. “Now we can take that energy and run with it for the rest of the year. We all know the Drake Relays are just around the corner, and that is going to give us a really good look at where we sit heading into the postseason! The team is having a lot of fun right now, and we will build off of that!”
