Raider girls use balance to win Cardinal Relays

CMB girls track coach Jerry Meinerts is now a perfect 3-for-3.

Meinerts, now in his third year as coach for the Raiders, used 14 top-3 performances to win the Cardinal Relays Class B meet on Thursday night for the third straight year at H.A. Lynn Field.

It also marked the first win of the season for CMB.

“The girls deserve this,” Meinerts said. “They’ve had a great, outstanding year, and they’ve been getting better every day, every meet. It’s just good to come to this meet and have the performances that they had. It’s just outstanding.”

CMB won the team title with 136.3 points, while North Mahaska was second in the eight-team field with 113 points. PCM was third with 101, Colfax-Mingo was fourth with 83.6 and Lynnvilly-Sully took fifth with 63 points.

The Raiders had just two titles but had seven seconds and five thirds. CMB also had two places in seven different events and also got a lot of help from the field events, scoring 42 points there alone.

“It was a very good start,” Meinerts said. “Coming out of the field events with 42 points, that’s a good night.”

CMB took first and second in both the shot put and 400-meter dash. Ashley Fricke won the shot put with a throw of 35 feet, 4.5 inches, while teammate Zeah Peterson was second with a throw of 34-8.

Sarah Galbraith was first in the 400 with a time of 1 minute, 2.5 seconds, while Anne Deutsch was second in 1:03.5.

“The 400 was an exciting race,” Meinerts said. “We went 1-2 in that. Those were are best times in that race.”

Five other events took runner-up — Alex Broderick in the high jump with a leap of 4-8, Zeah Peterson in the discus with a throw of 101-7, the 3,200-meter relay (Emmeline Huffaker, Hayley Leonard, Galbraith, Deutsch) in 10:29.1, the shuttle hurdle relay (Jenna Ziesman, Hannah Husske, Brittany Peterson, Broderick) in 1:14.6 and the distance medley relay (Leonard, Leeanna Smith, Ashley Girard, Huffaker) in 4:41.5.

Ziesman in the 100 hurdles, Deutsch in the 800 and Broderick in the 400 hurdles all took third, along with the 800-meter relay (Leonard, Smith, Kayla Hennick, Desiree Brandt) and the 1,600-meter relay (Huffaker, Galbraith, Girard, Deutsch).

PCM took third place overall thanks to winning seven events. Brilee McWilliams won the discus with a throw of 102-1 and Jordan Wood took the long jump with a leap of 15-6 to get the Mustangs off to a good start in the field events.

Stephanie Hayden also took a title individually in the 100 hurdles with a time of 17.2, while teammate Kaitlyn Wilkie was second in the event with a time of 17.8.

“We were looking to drop some times,” PCM girls track coach Joel Grier said. “We knew coming up here there was a good track and hope for some good weather, which we had. We were ready to make good things happen.”

Four relays also took top honors — the shuttle hurdle relay (Wilkie, Kelsey Townsend, Taylor Van Roekel, Hayden) in a season-best 1:11.8, the 800-meter relay (Hayden, Van Roekel, Jennifer Templeman, Wood) in a season-best 1:50.2, the 400-meter relay (Hayden, Van Roekel, Templeman, Wood) with a meet record of 51.9 and the 1,600-meter relay (Templeman, Van Roekel, Wilkie, Wood) in a season-best 4:17.2.

Jacque Kuecker in the 3,000 with a season-best and the sprint medley relay (Wilkie, Templeman, Payge Edwards, Townsend) also took third.

“We’re just too thin right now,” Grier said. “We’ve got four girls that have been injured and we just don’t have the depth and can’t fill the slots.”

Colfax-Mingo was led by Allyson Parman, who won the 100 in 13.3 and the 200 in 27.1. The distance medley relay (Molly Maggard, Cheyenne Larson, Meghan Parman, Breanna Trainor) also won with a time of 4:36.9.

“Allyson Parman in that open 100 and 200 — those are both state worthy times,” Colfax-Mingo girls track coach Zach Tomas said. “She ran her season best Tuesday night at Ogden, so coming off that, she did a real nice job.”

Four other events took runner-up honors for Colfax-Mingo, with Megan Russell earning a second in the 400 hurdles with a season-best time of 1:11.1. Three relays were second – the 800-meter relay (Danielle Beals, Katie Stuva, Russell, Allyson Parman) in 1:53.5, the sprint medley relay (Larson, Beals, Trainor, Maggard) in 2:20.8 and the 400-meter relay (Beals, Meghan Parman, Russell, Allyson Parman) in 52.6.

“We always kind of peak here,” Tomas said. “It’s kind of our home away from home, as close as we can get for a home meet.”

Lynnville-Sully got three more wins from Mariah Terlouw on Thursday night, with the senior winning the 3,000 (11:32.1), the 1,500 (5:27.2) and the 800 (2:33.6).

“Mariah won three events again tonight, and running season bests in two out of the three of them,” Lynnville-Sully girls track coach Darin Arkema said. “I don’t know if she will have to run as fast as she did tonight at her districts to qualify, but it’s a good test for her. She looks primed and ready to go for districts.”

The Hawks also got a third from Tessa Engle in the discus and a bronze medal from the 3,200-meter relay (Cassie Schwartz, McKenzi Ritter, Carly Van Wyk, Kelsi Vanden Hoek).

All four of these schools have the district meet just one week away. That’s the focus for the next week.

“Hopefully we can finish in the top-3 there (conference meet on Monday) and springboard us into the district meet on Friday,” Meinerts said. “We have an incredibly tough district. It’s going to be a rough road this next week and keep performing our best.”