*photos to come
Several local student-athletes earned conference championships at Thursday’s NICL Mega Track & Field Meet in Jesup.
In the girls team standings, Grundy Center was the champion, Aplington-Parkersburg was the runner-up, Dike-New Hartford was sixth, South Hardin was seventh and AGWSR was 12th. In the boys standings, Denver was the champion, Grundy Center was second, Dike-New Hartford was seventh, South Hardin was eighth, Aplington-Parkersburg was ninth and AGWSR was 15th.
Local champions:
Aplington-Parkersburg boys:
4×800 (Titan Verrett, Sully Janssen, Caleb Campbell, Trevan Thomas) – 8:07.99 (program record)
The boys 4×800 at the NICL meet is named in honor of the late Ed Thomas. With Ed’s grandson Trevan on this AP team, they accomplished the program record while winning the conference title.
“It just feels really good being able to break that record because we were so close last year to getting it,” Thomas says. “But then we were able to go out and get it tonight.”
“It’s special to do it in the Ed Thomas race,” Janssen says. “That means a lot to us as Falcons. All the practice and time where you put in on the track, between recovery and running, just makes it all worth it. It brings a smile to everyone.”
Dike-New Hartford girls:
4×200 (Kailyn Meester, Emmie Sager, Macie Graves, Chloe Paulsen) – 1:46.83
Meester and Paulsen say they outperformed their seed and continue to get better.
“We had good vibes coming in tonight,” Meester says. “The weather was super nice and we worked super hard on our handoffs this week. And we had lots of rest over the weekend. So I think we all felt really confident in ourselves tonight.”
“I think we just had a high goal set and we met it,” Paulsen says. “And we’re going continue to chip away seconds and it’ll be good.”
Grundy Center girls:
100 – Ava Heeren – 12.69
400 – Maddy Hendershot – 1:00.11
800 – Grace Storjohann – 2:23.41
High jump – Allison Koch – 5-06.00
Sprint medley (Ava Heeren, Karlee Lynch, Grace Storjohann, Maddy Hendershot) – 1:52.30
4×400 (Grace Storjohann, Raelyn Steinmeyer, Karlee Lynch, Maddy Hendershot – 4:05.69
Distance medley (Riah Schrage, Allison Koch, Karlee Lynch, Grace Storjohann) – 4:23.72
Grundy Center boys:
400 – Brayden Davie – 49.51
1600 – Emerson Vokes – 4:25.52
3200 – Emerson Vokes – 9:35.86
4×200 (Devin Hinders, Grant Newton, Judd Jirovsky, Brody Zinkula) – 1:29.40
Shuttle hurdle (Tiernan Vokes, Devin Hinders, Jacob Hoy, Pete Lebo) – 1:01.38
4×400 (Judd Jirovsky, Brody Zinkula, Brayden Wallis, Brayden Davie) – 3:24.68
Distance medley (Devin Hinders, Brody Zinkula, Lake Schrage, Judd Jirovsky) – 3:38.53
Emerson Vokes on his first career 3200 conference title.
“Obviously winning it in cross country, I kind of had goals for this season,” Vokes says. The conference championship, yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, it feels good. We got districts next week. But state, that’s the main thing.”
South Hardin boys:
Traven Wheeler – High jump – 6-02.00
South Hardin girls:
4×100 (Makana Ayers, Alli Sheldahl, Katie Allison, Ayda Eller) – 50.95
In somewhat of a statistical anomaly, the Falcon girls were the team runner-up despite having no conference champions. Top performances included runner-up finishes by Ava Eddy – 100 hurdles, Ella Buttjer – 200, Shuttle hurdle (Eva Walker, Adri Allan, Emma Wolff, Ava Eddy).
“It’s an unbelievable conference,” AP coach Alex Pollock says. “This meet truly prepares us for the district meet next week. In fact, I think this one’s more competitive and deeper than our district. So I think it gets us ready to go. We put together some really good relays tonight, and we were hoping that we could score some points here or there. We were consistent. Some girls are really running their best. And even some individual events that I just said, hey, can you get a point here to help us in the team race? And we end up placing pretty high. So we’re just really proud of our girls for their fight tonight. We know everybody’s kind of sore and dinged up right now, but it really came out. We were a really tough team tonight, so that was fun to see.”
Among local teams that didn’t win conference titles, the AGWSR girls were led by third place finishes by Josie Kuper in the shot put and the sprint medley. The Cougar boys were led by a seventh place finish in the distance medley.
The Dike-New Hartford boys had runner-ups by Jack Hoehns in the 110 hurdles and Jaiden Soppe in the high jump.
Alex Pollock
Aplington-Parkersburg boys 4×800
Chris Conger
Dike-New Hartford girls 4×200
Emerson Vokes
Grundy Center boys shuttle hurdle
Grundy Center girls distance medley
