March 28, 2024

Eagle, Hawk girls compete strong at Pella Christian meet

PELLA — Pella Christian’s girls piled up 99 1/2 points at their home meet — the Pella Christian Coed Invitational — Tuesday to finish third. Lynnville-Sully’s Hawks claimed fifth with 64 points and Prairie City-Monroe’s limited squad was eighth with 20 points.

Pella’s Little Dutch won the team title with 249 points.

The Eagles’ Christa Veenstra captured the gold medal in the 400-meter dash in 1 minute, 2.65 seconds. Leoh Breon won the 100-meter dash in 13.75 seconds then took second in the 200-meter dash in 28.69 seconds.

Lynnville-Sully’s lone gold-medal performance came in the 4x800-meter relay race. Madison Rasmusson, Tara Vos, Alexa Vander Leest and Cori Rice combined to win the event in 10:35.77. Pella Christian’s foursome of McKinley Zula, Courtney Nikkel, Cara Theune and Alyssa Starkey finished third in 11:19.73.

For the Hawks, Vos ran second in the 800-meter run in 2:33.17 and Rice was fourth in 2:46.62. Vander Leest finished third in the 1,500-meter run in 5:26.98.

“We were up against a number of bigger schools tonight, but I wanted the girls focusing on using that competition to help push them to strong performances,” said Darin Arkema, Lynnville-Sully head coach. “I wasn’t so concerned about what the final team score said, but rather were we getting out and competing in each event the best we could against some strong competition. For the most part, I thought we did a real good job of that.”

Arkema said even on a cool night again, the Hawk athletes posted some season-best times or personal bests, so improvement is definitely being made with each meet.

Pella Chrisitan’s Sarah Meyer was third in the 100-meter dash in 14.05 seconds, and Kasiah Ehresman of Lynnville-Sully placed fifth in 14.15 seconds. In the 200-meter dash, the Eagles’ Morgan Anderson took fourth in 29.72 and the Hawks’ Makenzy Rozendaal was sixth in 30.30 seconds.

The Eagles’ distance medley relay team of Taylor Bolt, Sydney Faber, Anderson and Marina Shannon was second in 4:46.98. Pella Christian’s sprint medley relay, 4x100- meter relay and 4x400-meter relay teams raked up third-place finishes.

Also taking third was Kathyryn Van Tuyl in the high jump for the Eagles, clearing the bar at 4 feet, 6 inches.

Other results for Pella Christian and Lynnville-Sully:

3,000-m run: 6. Line Ascanius, LS, 12:58.79, 7. Abby Van Soelen, PC, 13:49.50, 8. Shelby Foster, LS, 13:55.95.
1,500-m run: 4. Marina Shannon, PC, 5:38.82, 5. Alyssa Starkey, PC, 5:46.30. 800-m run: 7. Cara Theune, PC, 2:57.01.

400-m dash: 7. Alexis Hardenbrook, LS, 1:14.18.
Shot put: 6. Miranda Nikkel, PC, 29'8", 8. Jelissa Rozendaal, LS, 28'2".
Discus: 5. Lizzy Van Manen, LS, 94'4".
4x100-m relay: 3. PC (Kathryn Van Tuyl, Sarah Meyer, Taylor Bolt, Leah Breon), 53.89, 5. LS (Kasiah Ehresman, Brenna Lanser, Van Manen, Madison Rasmusson), 54.78. 4x200-m relay: 4. LS (Ehresman, Lanser, Van Manen, Rasmusson), 1:55.62, 5. PC (Van Tuyl, Bolt, Morgan Anderson, Meyer), 1:58.83.
4x400-m relay: 3. PC (Anderson, Sydney Faber, Bolt, Christa Veenstra), 4:38.61, 6. LS (Emma Schnell, Shelby Foster, Olivia Ritter, Kristine Jaennette), 5:10.53.
Sprint medley relay: 3. PC (Van Tuyl, Meyer, L. Breon, Veenstra), 1:58.31, 7. LS (Makenzy Razendaal, Kaley Exline, J. Rozendaal, Schnell), 2:26.34.
Distance medley relay: 6. LS (Shelby Davis, M. Rozendaal, Schnell, Ritter), 5:23.87.