Mustangs, Tigerhawks, Hawks perform well at Montezuma

MONTEZUMA — Three area girls track teams were in action in Montezuma on Tuesday evening, as Prairie City-Monroe, Colfax-Mingo and Lynnville-Sully competed in the 13-team Lewis Lundy Relays. Teams were split into Class A and B schools, with Class A being the larger.

All three schools had good meets, led by PCM topping the Class A standings by a 31-point margin. Colfax-Mingo took third, while Lynnville-Sully was the runner-up in Class B.

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PCM won the Class A meet with 154 points, followed by Pekin (123) and Colfax-Mingo (89). The Mustangs had a plethora of big performances, as they had 17 top-3 placewinners. They won six events, were a runner-up in six, third in five and fifth in four.

Sophomore Lexi Kain was the team’s biggest contributer, accounting for 23 of its points on the evening. Individually, she won the 200-meter dash in 28.04 seconds and narrowly took second in the 400 in 1:02.19. Junior Kelsey Townsend was second on the team with 20.5 team points, picking up eight each in the 100 and 400 hurdles as she took second in both with times of 17.93 seconds and 1:14.93. She was the runner-up in the 100 hurdles by just .02 hundreths of a second.

Senior Brilee McWilliams and sophomore Abbi Gilson were second and third for PCM with 18 and 16 team points, respectively, earning big points in the throwing events. McWilliams won the discus with a toss of 106-feet, 1 inch and second in the shot put at 34-1.5, while Gilson took third in both with marks of 99-6 in the disc and a personal-best 33-7 in the shot put.

The Mustangs’ other individual winner was freshman Rachel Peter, who took the 3,000 in a personal-best time of 12:02.09. She also was fifth in the 1,500. Mackenzie Clarke and Jennifer Templeman went 2-3 in the 100 in 13.72 and 14 seconds, while the team also got third place individually from Shelby Palm in the 100 hurdles (18.73 seconds) and Courtney Van Houweling in the long jump (14-feet, 6 inches).

Three of PCM’s six winners were relays. The 4x100 team of Clarke, Emma Williams, Templeman and Kain won in a season-best 52.85 seconds; the 4x200 team of Clarke, Jennifer Templeman, Townsend and Kain won in 1:55.59 and the shuttle hurdle team of Palm, Kain, Williams and Townsend took first in 1:12.27. The 4x400 team of Van Houweling, Gilson, Williams and Townsend took second in 4:34.71.

Colfax-Mingo

Colfax-Mingo had is best meet of the season on Tuesday, placing in the top three in nine of the 19 events.

The Tigerhawks were led by senior Meghan Parman, who had 24.5 of the team’s 89 poitns. She earned 20 of them by winning the 100 and 400 sprints in times of 13.45 seconds and 1:01.88 and then anchored the sprint medley relay to a win in 2:00.21. That team also included senior Hailey Summy, junior Jessica Kolo and senior Katie Stuva.

Senior Hailey Summy finished second on the team with 13.5 points. She took second in the long jump at 14-feet, 6.5 inches and led off sprint medley. Summy has medaled for the Tigerhawks in each of their meets this season.

Freshman Kennedi Hostetter had the team’s other individual top-three finish, taking third in the 3,000 in 12:59.21.

Colfax-Mingo also got a boost from the return of sophomore Anna Baldwin — a returning state qualifier — who ran in her first outdoor meet of the season after being injured early in the year. She picked up right where she left off last year with strong performances in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays, in which the Tigerhawks took second and third in times of 54.97 seconds and 2:00.81.

Lynnville-Sully

The meet was Lynnville-Sully’s first in 12 days, as it had one cancelled last Friday. Its runner-up finish in Class B was thanks to its 10 top-3 finishes, including five event-winners. The Hawks also took second in four events, third in one, fourth in three, fifth in five and sixth in four. North Mahaska topped the standings with 172.33 points, while L-S had 114. Green Mountain-Garwin had 90.33, and Colo-Nesco was fourth with 78.33.

It was a big evening for Hawks sophomore Alexa Vander Leest, who won the 1,500 and 3,000-meter races in times of 5 minutes, 19.11 seconds and 11.38.09. Having a big meet of her own freshman Madison Rasmusson. She won the long jump with a leap of 14-feet, 9 inches, took second in the 200 in 28.55 seconds and third in the 400 in 1:05.89.

Senior Amelia DeWitt won the shot put with a toss of 31-feet, 7 inches, while the team’s other victory came from the 4x800 relay team of seniors Cassie Schwartz, Kenzi Ritter, sophomore Tara Vos and freshman Cori Rice, which won in 11:06.63.

“”I was curious to see how the girls would come out and perform tonight since they hadn’t competed in 12 days,” Hawks coach Darin Arkema said. “In some regards it may have helped the girls feel more rested and fresh, but we probably weren’t as sharp from a mental or technical aspect since we were out of routine.”

Taking second individually was Vos in the 800, finishing in 2:40.15. Two relay teams also took second. The 4x400 team of freshman Shelby Davis, Ritter, Rasmusson and Vos was a runner-up in 4:36.43, while the distance medley team of freshman Taylor Vander Leest, Ritter, Davis and senior Kelsi Vanden Hoek finished second in 5:03.52.

“The girls scored a lot of points again tonight and came away with a solid second-place finish,” Arkema said. ‘That is definitely an effort to be proud of. Many of their performances would have been very competitive in the class with the big schools as well.”

Team scores
Class A
1, Prairie-City Monroe 154; 2, Pekin 123; 3, Colfax-Mingo 89; 4, South Tama 84; 5, Knoxville 72; 6, Iowa Valley 56.

Class B
1, North Mahaska 172.33; 2, Lynnville-Sully 114; 3, GMB 90.33; 4, Colo-Nesco 78.33; 5, Montezuma 68; 6, English Valleys 51; 7, Tri-County 13.