Juniors leads Tigerhawks to seventh-place finish

VAN METER — Jacob Lietz is one of several juniors who have led the Colfax-Mingo boys’ track and field team this season.

On Monday, it was more of the same as Lietz won the 400-meter dash, took third in the 200 and athletes in the junior class recorded six top-five finishes on a very windy night at the Van Meter Bulldog Invitational.

The Tigerhawks were seventh overall in the team standings with 46 points as they edged Colo-NESCO by two.

“I was really pleased with the mental toughness the boys showed tonight,” Colfax-Mingo coach Matt Barkalow said. “With winds gusting between 20-30 miles per hour and temperatures feeling like the high 30s, our guys pushed through and competed well.”

Woodward Academy was the team champion with 93 points. It had one more point than both Van Meter and Panorama and Pleasantville (73) was fourth and Des Moines Christian (70) was fifth.

Nodaway Valley (68) finished one position ahead of Colfax-Mingo and the Tigerhawks were better than the Royals (44), Martensdale-St. Marys (27), Adair-Casey (27), West Central Valley (14) and Iowa Christian Academy (11).

Lietz won the 400 with a time of 53.45 seconds and his bronze-medal performance in the 200 was clocked at 24.32 seconds.

Lietz also helped the distance medley relay team to a second-place finish. He was joined on that team by juniors Blake Summy, Colin Lourens and Gabe Simpson and they finished in 3:54.62.

The 4x200 relay was third in a time of 1:39.30. That foursome included Summy, Lourens, junior Jared Myers and Simpson.

The 4x400 team of Summy, Simpson, Myers and Lietz were fifth in 3:43.28.

The other top-five tally came from Lourens in the long jump. He was fifth with a personal-best leap of 19 feet, 2.75 inches.

The Tigerhawks return to action at 5 p.m. Thursday at Martensdale-St. Marys.