March 28, 2024

Mustang girls cruise to first team title

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MONROE — There wasn’t much Prairie City-Monroe girls track and field coach Bridget Martin could be unhappy about Tuesday during the Mustangs’ co-ed home meet.

PCM piled up gold medal after gold medal and athletes in every grade played big roles in piling up plenty of points. The Mustangs’ first team championship of the season included nine first-place tallies, three silver medals and eight third-place finishes.

By the end of the night, PCM was 20 points ahead of Heart of Iowa Conference rival North Polk. The Mustangs scored 182 points, while the Comets had 162. Knoxville scored 117 in third, while Pleasantville (65), Chariton (36) and PCM JV (11) rounded out the six-team field.

“We are very happy with tonight’s performances,” Martin said. “We had a lot of events improve by a significant number, which is our biggest goal right now. We want to get better each day.”

Senior Jayci Vos won two individual events and anchored the Mustangs to wins in the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Senior Rachel Stafford and sophomore Paytan Schut each claimed three wins, while senior Tatum Nearmyer and junior Ashley Miller each claimed two gold medals.

Vos won the 400-meter hurdles with a season-best time of 1 minute, 8.77 seconds. She also competed in the long jump for the second time in her career and won with a leap of 14 feet, 6 1/2 inches.

Stafford won the 400. She trailed most of the way before making up the stagger in the final 30 meters. She finished with a winning time of 1:04.92.

Schut’s individual win came in the 800. She led from the opening gun and finished in 2:36.93.

Vos, Stafford and Schut teamed up with Nearmyer to win the 4x400 relay. That group won the race in 4:18.73.

Schut and Stafford teamed up again in the 4x800 relay. That unit also included sophomore Kirsten Ives and freshman Sayde White and they finished in a season-best time of 10:22.

“We are already 10 seconds faster than the time we qualified for state with last year,” Schut said about the 4x800. “We feel really good about that event right now. It’s going well so far.”

Schut’s sophomore season is off to a fast start after not competing to the level she wanted to last season. She said it’s most a confidence thing.

“Last year, I didn’t believe in myself enough,” Schut said. “When I told myself I was tired, I got tired. This year, I made an effort to flip it around. It was a mental thing.”

Vos and Nearmyer joined together in the 4x100, too. That foursome included Miller and freshman Sierra Foster, and they finished in a season-best 53.68 seconds.

The two other wins came from Miller in the 100 and sophomore Megan Cowman in the 100 hurdles. Miller’s winning time was clocked at 13.43, while Cowman won the hurdles in 17.69.

Cowman also gained a second-place as she led off the shuttle hurdle team. That group included freshman Lexi Kuecker, sophomore Morgan Uhlenhopp and Ives, and they finished in 1:18.20.

Uhlenhopp gave the Mustangs a 1-2 finish in the 400 hurdles. Uhlenhopp trailed Vos by 10 seconds, but it earned her a silver medal with a time of 1:18.78.

The final runner-up finish came from Foster in the 200. She was timed at 29.40.

“Our seniors were a big part of our success tonight,” Martin said. “When looking at the points they were part of, it is huge. But the underclassmen also stepped up. To win a team title, it takes more than just first-place finishes. Every point counts. It was a great team effort tonight.”

The points didn’t stop with first and second for PCM. The Mustangs grabbed five individual third-place finishes and three relays took third.

Sophomore Maddie Samson was third in both the shot put (31-11) and discus (99-8), Kuecker was third in the 100 hurdles (18.62) and the long jump (13-9) and freshman Klaire Jungling finished third in the 3,000 (13:23.68).

The 4x200, sprint medley and distance medley relays all finished third.

The 4x200 included Miller, Hannah McCarthy, Kate McCarthy and Uhlenhopp and they finished in 1:58.95. The sprint medley relay included Miller, Foster, Nearmyer and sophomore Sloan Hjortshoj and they finished in 2:04.62. The foursome on the distance medley relay team that stopped the clock in 4:55.51 included Hannah McCarthy, Kate McCarthy, Foster and Hjortshoj.

The Mustangs had 20 top-three finishes in the 19 total events. Of the 19 events, PCM did not score a top-three finish in only the high jump. Nearmyer was fourth in that event though.

“It’s always fun to win a meet, but it’s even better to win at home,” Martin said. “It’s even more fun to have both the girls and boys teams take home the team title. It’s been a long time since we’ve both won our coed invitational. It’s an exciting time right now for PCM track and field, and it’s a lot of fun to be a part of it.”

PCM competes at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont.