The Ankeny boys’ track team capped off a successful weekend at the Drake Relays with a pair of third-place finishes on Saturday.
The Hawks were one of four teams to advance to the final in the shuttle hurdle relay. They posted a time of 57.65 seconds in the preliminaries, then returned to the blue oval a few hours later and lowered their mark to 57.41 in the final to edge Pella for third place.
The Ankeny foursome of Jack Romig, Sam Madsen, Hayden Carlson and Norman Ha was officially clocked in 57.404. The Dutch crossed the finish line in 57.407.
“I was looking to get first obviously, but I’m happy with how all of us ran,” said Madsen. “We came in with the fourth-fastest time and got third in a really close race. I thought we all ran well, but we’ve still got a lot to improve when it comes to state.”
Iowa City West won the race in 55.82. The Trojans eclipsed the all-time record of 56.06 that was set by Ankeny at last year’s Class 4A state meet.
“They’re fast,” Madsen said of the Trojans. “And the times are just going to get lower and lower.”
Carlson, who won the 110 hurdles on Friday, is back from last year’s shuttle hurdle squad along with Madsen. However, Landon Pote and Gavin Wise both graduated last spring.
“The group we had last year was a crazy quartet that we had going,” Madsen said. “To lose two of them was going to be a hard loss, but I’d say we filled their spots pretty well. We just need to keep improving.”
Ankeny later got a third-place finish in the 1,600 from Isaiah Smith. He posted a time of 4:12.93.
Smith was in 11th place after the opening 400, then moved up to eighth at the midway point of the race. He was in fourth place after running the third quarter in 1:04.16.
“My position was perfect,” said Smith. “I guess I just didn’t have that extra gear. They wanted it more than me, I guess.”
Jack Crossland of Johnston and Slader Buckheister of Cedar Rapids Kennedy–who began the final lap in sixth and seventh place, respectively–both ran the final 400 in under a minute to take the top two places.
Crossland used a 58.39 quarter to win the race in 4:11.06. Buckheister ran a 59.65 quarter to place second in 4:12.52.
Smith, who also placed third in the 800 on Friday, was hard on himself after the race.
“I’m not happy,” he said. “I didn’t have it the last 200, and I got outkicked by two people.”
Still, Smith was part of an impressive showing by the Hawks over the last two days.
“We’ve been able to showcase a lot of our abilities, but I still think we have another level to it,” Smith said. “We’ll just keep training and focus on state.”
Ankeny Centennial’s Cohen Moll also competed in the 1,600. He moved ahead of Smith and into seventh midway through the race, but eventually finished 11th in 4:17.07.
Earlier, Moll anchored the Jaguars to a third-place finish in the 4×800 relay. He teamed up with Brecken Allen, Jack Behrens and Jax Alvarez to post a time of 7:47.56.
“I felt pretty good,” said Moll, who ran the anchor leg in 1:53.21. “I think the rest of the legs put me in a good spot to compete for a podium spot.”
Allen ran the opening leg in 1:55.27 and got to the first exchange in a three-way battle for the lead along with Bettendorf’s AJ Willey and Cedar Falls’ Porter Myers.
“We just wanted to go out fast and show what we can do,” said Allen. “We were trying to win it.”
Bettendorf got a strong second leg from Andrew Heden to take the lead at the midway point of the race, but then began to fade and eventually finished 14th. Cedar Falls, meanwhile, surged to the lead on Dominic Williams’ 1:52.62 split on the third leg.
Brennen Hoyer then anchored the Tigers to the victory in a time of 7:40.42. Waukee Northwest took second in 7:41.15.
“We wanted to show everybody what Centennial has in us,” Moll said. “We came in as a No. 16 seed, we barely made it in (to the race). But we knew we had more. We just had to put together a race.”
Both teams also competed in the preliminaries of the 4×100 relay. The Centennial quartet of James Naert, Heisman Dickinson, Kyler Jones and James Cole placed 12th overall in 42.57, missing the final by just .11 seconds.
Ankeny wasn’t far behind, finishing 23rd in a field of 95 teams. The foursome of Finn McClure, Owen Fischer, Cooper McDowell and Treyton Grossman was clocked in 43.10 seconds.
