Central girls finish fourth at Waukon, miss first place by a point at MFL MarMac
Haley Mueller passes the baton to Maddy Wille during the sprint medley relay at Waukon. The Warriors finished third with a season best time. (Photos by Bev Hamann)
Staci Herman was a member of the 4x400 relay team that finished fifth at the MFL MarMac meet on April 29.
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
The Central girls track and field team started its week off with a fourth place finish at the Waukon Girls Indian Relays, scoring 86 points.
Delaney Scherf led the effort with 10.5 points, followed by Jaydin Dettman and Brandy Beatty with 8.5 points apiece. The Warriors had 19 athletes score at least one point.
The scoring started in the 100 meter dash, where the Warriors had two top-10 finishers, Haley Mueller and Shannon Farmer, who placed eighth and ninth, respectively. Both finished the race in personal record times. Mueller added another top-10 result in the 200 meter dash, finishing sixth with a personal record time of 30.48. Teammate McKenna Jaster finished 11th. Dettman finished a close second in the 400, running a personal record time of 1:04.75 and getting eight points for the team.
Delaney Scherf made her presence known in the 800 meter run with a second place finish. She ran the race in 2:36.76 and earned eight points. In the 3000 meter run, Allie Mussman placed fifth, running the race in 13:35.27, which was good for three points.
The top 10s continued in the hurdle events, as Beatty and Jaster finished fourth and eighth, respectively, in the 100 meter hurdles. Beatty ran a personal record time of 16.88 and grabbed four points for the team. The 400 meter hurdles were more of the same, as Gracie Cummer finished fourth with a personal record time of 1:15.01 and teammate Kaitlyn Wiley was close behind in seventh. The pair added a combined five points to the team’s total.
The field events saw several top performances from the Warriors. In the discus, Aly Feickert finished eighth with a personal record distance of 78 feet, 8 inches, while Abby Cummer placed 11th. In the shot put, Cummer shined with a fourth place finish with a throw of 30 feet, 7 inches, winning four points. Feickert finished 11th.
Brittni Tieden took third in the high jump with a height of 4 feet, 8 inches. The jump added six more points to the team’s total.
The Warriors sent Lexi Loan and Gracie Cummer into the long jump and both finished in the top 10 with personal record jumps. Loan was fifth with a distance of 14 feet, 3.25 inches, while Cummer placed seventh with a distance of 13 feet, 11.25 inches. Together, they won four points.
But it was the relays where the Warriors really showed their talent, with seven top-five finishes in eight races. In the 4x100, the team of Maddy Wille, Shannon Farmer, Alivia Keppler and Beatty finished fourth, earning four points. In the 4x100 meter weight person relay, Abby Cummer, Rebecca Suhr, Regan Rosol and Feickert crossed the line in third place in 1:06.48. The team added a fourth place finish in the 4x200 meter relay when Wille, Wiley, Farmer and Hannah Asche finished the race in 1:57.54, securing four points. The 4x400 meter relay was run by Taylor Moser, Katelyn Scherf, Eva Embretson and Mylee Wingert, who placed second with a time of 4:26.57, winning eight points.
The 400 shuttle hurdle relay was another second place effort for Central, when the squad of Beatty, Wiley, Gracie Cummer, and Jaster finished the race in 1:14.57. The Warriors were third in the 800 sprint medley, with Beatty, Mueller, Wille and Asche running a 1:58.25, less than two seconds behind the winning team from North Hampton. The Warriors also dominated the 1600 distance medley, with Wille, Loan, Asche and Delaney Scherf crossing the line in 4:38.75, which was six seconds faster than second-place Decorah.
The 4x800 meter relay was the lone finish outside the top five, but it was still a close sixth place result from Jaydin Dettman, Lizzie Royer, Carly Kluesner and Moser, who ran the race in 12:14.42.
“This was a busy meet for the team. With unlimited entries in each event, we were able to put nearly all of our girls in four events, so we had a season-high number of PRs with 25. The weather turned a bit windy and chilly, so we didn’t have as many season bests, but the girls enjoyed being in more events and having more opportunities to PR,” said head coach Martha Bauder.
The Warrior girls turned in another stellar performance in a meet at MFL MarMac on April 29, finishing second with a score of 106, just one point behind Waukon. The Warriors had a top-10 finisher in every event they competed in and set 10 new personal records.
In the 100 meter dash, Mueller finished 10th with a time of 14.5, and Wille ran a personal record time of 28.71 to finish fourth in the 200 meter dash. In the 400, Asche ran a 1:04.99, which was good for second place.
In the longer distance races, it was Delaney Scherf with a second place finish in the 800, in a time of 2:39.5, while Allie Mussman finished 10th with a time of 3:16.1. Dettman ran a personal record time of 5:41.78 in the 1500, crossing the line in second place. In the 3000, Mussman finished third, running a time of 13:39.4.
In the hurdle events, Beatty was the top finisher in the 100 meters, running a 17.58 to place third. Jaster was close behind in sixth. In the 400 event, Gracie Cummer ran the race in 1:16.8, finishing third, while Wiley hit the line in fifth place.
During the field events, Abby Cummer had a bounce-back performance, with top five finishes in the discus and the shot put. She put up a distance of 30 feet, 10 inches in the shot put and finished fifth place, and threw the discus a personal best 93 feet, 4 inches and finished third. Feickert placed 13th in the shot put and 12th in discus.
Tieden won the high jump event with a height of 4 feet, 8 inches, and in the long jump, Gracie Cummer set a personal record with a jump of 14 feet, finishing fifth.
In the relays, the Warriors finished top-five in seven events. In the 4x100, meter relay, they sent Tieden, Jaster, Keppler and Mueller to the track, and they crossed the line fifth at 59.19. In the 4x200, Ashlyn Scherf, Mackayla Vlazny, Keppler and Farmer finished fourth, running the race in 2:06.3. It was another fifth place finish in the 4x400, as Staci Herman, Ashlyn Scherf, Farmer and Moser ran the race in 4:57.2. The 4x800 meter relay was a fourth place finish, when Moser, Katelyn Scherf, Carly Kluesner and Wingert ran a 13:10.8.
In the 800 sprint medley, the quartet of Wille, Beatty, Asche and Delaney Scherf added a victory to the team’s stat line, securing a time of 2:02.4. Then it was a pair of second place finishes for the Warriors in the 400 meter shuttle hurdle relay with Beatty, Wiley, Cummer and Jaster and the 1600 distance medley relay by Wille, Gracie Cummer, Wiley and Dettman.
Of the event, Bauder said, “Nice warm temps kept our spirits upbeat for this meet, but gusty winds kept us from very many season bests. We did a very good job, though, of staying competitive within each event. We had some notable performances that sent an energy bolt through the girls, which was fun to see: Abby Cummer’s PR discus throw where the discus miraculously turned vertical and sliced right through the wind and sailed out 93 feet; Brandy Beatty’s fall in the shuttle hurdle race where she volleyball rolled in perfect rhythm, got up and finished her leg of the relay which allowed the team to still place second; and Jaydin Dettman, who came from behind to run down the leader in the 1500 race and, in photo finish fashion, got second by five one-thousandths of a second.”
Next, the Warriors have a May 3 meet at Edgewood-Colseburg, before heading to North Fayette Valley May 6 for the Upper Iowa Conference meet.
