UIC meet is best of season for Warriors
Bella Schmitt takes the baton from Savannah Orr in the sprint medley relay at the Upper Iowa Conference meet on May 8. (Photos by Bev Hamann)
Layla Embretson threw her way to seventh in the discus at the Ed-Co Girls Invite on May 5.
Ella Frieden leads off the varsity 4x400 at Ed-Co.
By Willis Patenaude | Times-Register
The Central girls track and field team started the last week of the season before state qualifying competing in the Ed-Co Girls Invitational on May 5. The Warriors finished eighth with several top-10 finishes and a handful of season-best performances against some of the best teams in the state.
Among the standout results was fourth place for Coral Rork in the 3000-meter run. Alexis Thiese finished the race seventh.
The team received another medal in the distance medley relay with a third-place finish by Reese Berns, Thiese, Ella Frieden and Blair Scherf. The Warriors also had notable finishes in the 4x100, with Maci Keppler, Tenley Bormann, Isabella Schmidt and Payton Stannard crossing the line eighth, and in the 4x400, where Frieden, Berns, Lily Becwar and Scherf placed fifth.
The Warriors put up solid results in the field events, starting with an eighth-place height by Brooke Tieden in the high jump. Layla Embretson was seventh in the discus and Berns had the same placement in the long jump.
Central had additional seventh-place finishes in the 800-sprint medley relay, thanks to Stannard, Frieden, Berns and Scherf. Becwar earned seventh in the 400-meter dash and Scherf was sixth in the 1500-meter run.
Bormann had a personal record time of 15.03 seconds to place ninth in the 100, with Schmidt right behind in 10th. The team added another ninth-place result in the 4x200 that featured Keppler, Bormann, Schmidt and Stannard. In other results, Coral Rork finished 13th in the 800 and Wiley was 15th in the 200.
“Our string of nice weather continued this week. I thought perhaps we would have had a few more PRs at Ed-Co, but I still felt we competed well. It’s always good to have competition and this meet was a notch up in that category with quite a few teams that have events that are ranked in the top three in the state,” said coach Martha Bauder.
Next up for the Warriors was the Upper Iowa Conference meet at MFL MarMac on May 8, where they had the “best overall meet of the season,” according to Bauder.
Central earned a season high number of personal records and season bests, while improving their rankings in several events before districts at Ed-Co on May 15.
The competition started well, with Natalya Singleton battling back from a recent concussion to finish second place in the shot put with a personal record distance of 36’ 7”.
The Warriors found success in other field events as well, with Tieden placing fourth in the high jump, Embretson fifth in the discus and Thiese taking seventh in the long jump.
Adding to the highlights was Scherf, who finished the meet with three personal records, one as an individual runner and two as part of relay teams. Scherf was fourth in the 800-meter run in 2:40.07, then anchored the 4x400 relay with Frieden, Berns and Wiley en route to fourth place. She was part of another fourth-place run in the distance medley with Berns, Wiley and Frieden.
Wiley had several highlights too, including third place in the 400-meter hurdles, an event that saw Thiese in seventh. In addition to the solo performance, Wiley powered the 4x200 relay with Berns, Frieden and Keppler to a season-best time of 1:57.50 and a third-place finish.
Strong relay performances continued in the 4x800, as Thiese, Tieden, Aspen Rork and Hannah Friedlein finished fourth, then Central took fifth place in the 800-sprint medley with Savannah Orr, Schmidt, Mya Gregerson and Becwar. They also placed sixth in the 4x100 with Stannard, Bormann, Orr and Keppler.
Several Warriors achieved personal records, including a pair of runners in the 100-meter dash, in Stannard and Makenzie Thorson. The two were a respective ninth and 17th. Stannard achieved another personal record in the 200-meter dash with an eighth-place finish. Bormann crossed the line 12th in that event. Friedlein finished the 1500 in 10th with a personal record time, just behind Aspen Rork in ninth. In the 400-meter dash, Becwar took eighth and Schmidt ninth. Thiese was 12th in the 100-meter hurdles.
The Warriors head to the state qualifying meet at Ed-Co on Thursday, May 15.
