March 28, 2024

Raiders win home track meets on Senior Night

BAXTER — Between the weather and the final team standings, Monday was just about a perfect night for the Collins-Maxwell-Baxter boys and girls track teams.

The Raider girls held off fellow Jasper County school Prairie City-Monroe by a narrow margin, while the Raider boys cruised to a more than 50-point victory in the combined Lady Raider Relays and CMB Invite.

PCM’s boys finished third, while the girls team from Colfax-Mingo took fourth and the Tigerhawk boys took fifth.

CMB

The Raider girls haven’t had any problems meeting their goals of winning meets lately, and that trend continued Monday.

Despite winning just three events, CMB had 30 top-six finishes to accumulate 168 points and edge out the charging Mustangs.

“One of our goals at the beginning of the season was to win both of our home meets, and we accomplished that goal tonight,” CMB coach Jerry Meinerts said. “It was senior night tonight, and I’m proud of the efforts of our team, sending the seniors out on top. This meet was a great battle.”

Courtney Ubben had the team’s lone individual victory by throwing the shot 34 feet, 10 inches. The 4x800-meter relay team of Ashley Girard, Carter Larsen, Shelby Berg and Anne Deutsch won with a time of 11 minutes, 6.28 seconds, as did the 4x400 team of Kayla Hennick, Deutsch, Abbie Haupert and Bridget Hurley with a time of 4:19.94.

The Raiders added eight second-place finishes, seven of which were in individual events. Five more CMB events earned third-place finishes and there were nine that finished fourth.

On the boys’ side, junior Zach Samson picked up from where he left off at the Drake Relays and took another step closer to his older brother’s school shot put record.

Samson won Monday’s shot put with a throw of 56-5, as well as the discus with a throw of 158 even. Clayton Weltha finished second in the discus with a personal best throw of 143-1, while Patrick Girard earned personal-best discus throw for fourth place.

Senior Aaron Ward won both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs, and was followed up by teammate Mark Deutsch with finishes of sixth and second, respectively. The Raiders picked up their final win from sophomore Bryce Kemp in the 110 hurdles (15.24).

Other top finishes included a pair of second-place performances from Jordan Coughenour in the 400 hurdles (57.81) and the high jump (5-10) and a third-place 800 from Austin Moorman. In the relays, CMB was led by a second-place showing in the distance medley with a time of 4:05.90.

“I was really pleased with how tough we were. A week or two ago, I didn’t think we had ran really tough, but tonight we competed hard and had a lot of personal best,” Raider boys coach Neil Seales said. “It was a beautiful night with great weather, which can be a distraction when it’s too nice, but our guys really focused and competed.”

PCM

The team that gave the Raider girls the biggest run for their money was the Mustang girls, who had a full team for the first time this season after battling injury and illness since the indoor meets.

PCM won 12 events on the evening to rack up 162 points, which fell just eight shy of the first-place Raiders. The fact that the team put together this kind of night at full strength will obviously raise some concerns for other teams down the stretch,

“It’s crazy that we had as many first-places as we had and we still got second overall, but we’re still pleased with what happened,” PCM girls coach Bridget Burns said. “It obviously would’ve been nice to win the meet, but when you have as many firsts and bests as we did, you’re happy with what you’ve got.”

Leading the charge for the Mustangs were the throwers. Junior Abbi Gilson took a distant first in the discus (114-10) and was followed by sophomore Grace Telfer (93-07) in second. That duo went 2-3 in the shot put as well, with Gilson throwing 33-7 and Telfer going 33 even.

Junior Lexi Kain had herself a night, anchoring the first-place 4x100 team with Kelsey Townsend, McKenzie Clarke and Emma Williams, as well as winning the 200 (27.32) and 400 (1:02.03). Clarke and Townsend claimed the remaining sprint events, as Clarke won the 100 (13.89) and Townsend claimed the 100 (17.10) and 400 hurdles (1:14.56). Sophomore Rachel Peter contributed PCM’s final individual victories in the 800 with time of 2:38.96 and 1,500 with a time of 5:23.14.

In the relays, PCM was also victorious in the sprint medley, distance medley and 4x200.

The Mustang boys finished third with 79 points, just 17 points behind Bondurant-Farrar.

Hunter Reed scored PCM’s first victory, winning the 400 hurdles with a time of 57.68. He also placed third in the 110 hurdles with a time of 15.30, and helped the shuttle hurdle team take third with a time of 1:04.04. The team’s only other victory came from the distance medley team of Ricky Reeve, Zach Uhlenhopp, Ron Marshall and Rhett Gainey and its time of 4:01.30.

Other notable finishes for the Mustang boys included Ethan Kain’s jump of 5-10 in the high jump to tie Coughenour for second, Blake McWilliams finishing third in the shot put with a throw of 49-0.75 and Maverick McAtee taking third in the 1,600 with a time of 5:02.15. The 4x400 team of Uhlenhopp, Alex Dahms, Kain and Troy Vittetoe ended the night with a second-place time of 3:38.70.

“There was some pretty tough competition here, but I think we did all right,” PCM boys coach Greg Bonnett said. “I think we’ll have one more nice day before it gets bad again, so we were just out here enjoying it.”

Colfax-Mingo

After taking eighth in the long jump at the Drake Relays, Tigerhawk senior Connor Hainer seemed to be even more zoned in than usual Monday.

Hainer led the C-M boys with four victories, winning the 200 (22.46), 400 (51.44), long jump (21-10.25) and anchoring the 4x400 team with Byron Johnson, Chad McLain and Jaden Van Dyke to a first-place time of 3:32.97. Hainer’s long jump attempt was also a meet record.

McLain set a record of his own, finally grabbing C-M’s school record in the shot put with a throw of 50 feet even. On top of comfortably setting that mark, McLain finished second in Monday’s event.

Much of the Tigerhawks’ success came in relay events, as the 4x800 team of Van Dyke, Jake Lietz, Dylan Albright and Johnson took second with a time of 8:56.59. The distance medley team of Albright, Michael Brown, Johnson and Lietz finished third in 4:05.90.

“The boys did a nice job and worked really hard,” Tigerhawks coach Matt Barkalow said. “CMB puts on a nice meet, and now we just need to look forward to the Cardinal Relays.”

It was a night of personal bests for the Tigerhawk girls, who racked up 63 points for a fourth-place finish.

Kennedi Hostetter had the team’s lone victory of the night in the 3,000, winning by a nearly eight-second margin with a time of 12:15.47 and taking sixth in both the 400 and 1,500. Mari Gonzales had the team’s only individual second-place finish in the 400 hurdles with a personal-best time of 1:13.02.

The Tigerhawks also earned personal bests in the sprint medley and distance medley relays with times of 1:59.91 and 4:46.42, respectively. The sprint medley team of Jessica Kolo, Erin Earles, Jessica Albright and McKinzie Tjaden took second, while the distance medley and 4x400 teams each finished third.

The sprint medley team ran a PR, zoning in on state time. Gonzales PR’d in the 400 hurdles. Distance medley also had a PR. 4x400 had a PR by six seconds

“There were a lot of good things tonight, and our girls are getting to where they need to be,” Tomas said. “Kennedi Hostetter had probably the best I’ve seen her run in her two years with us. That was probably an all-time best for her.”