C-M girls grab pair of 11th-place finishes on blue oval

DES MOINES — The Colfax-Mingo girls’ track and field team changed their order of the shuttle hurdle relay for the state meet this past weekend.

Senior Caylee Cunningham felt like that change was one of the reasons the Tigerhawks posted a season-best time and set a new school record on Thursday night.

The Tigerhawks wound up 11th overall, but three seniors took with them another record in the event. And their time of 1 minute, 8.79 seconds would have qualified for the finals in 3A.

“It was frustrating in the shuttle that we would have qualified in 3A, but we just deal with the cards we are dealt and take on those challenges,” senior Carley Underwood said. “If there’s a way to go out, it’s to run your best time. We were running 1:10s and 1:11s mostly this year so to drop 2 seconds was amazing.”

The shuttle hurdle team included Cunningham, senior McKenna Pleima, sophomore Trinity Smith and Underwood. They came into the state meet seeded 19th with a time of 1:10.17. It took a 1:08.17 to qualify for the finals in 2A and a 1:08.87 in 3A.

The Tigerhawks’ time this season would have qualified for the finals in last year’s prelims, too.

Both Sioux Central (1:04.67) and Ridge View (1:04.75) posted times that would have been state meet records in the finals.

“We’ve put a lot of work into it. We were more together tonight,” Pleima said. “For three of us, this was it. We wanted to go out big.”

Cunningham thought the order played a role in the team dropping so much time. She said the foursome was more comfortable in their spots.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Cunningham said. “Everyone was ready to go. That was awesome.”

Cunningham and Smith were hurdling for the first time this season. And next year, Smith will have to find three new relay partners if she wants to get back to the blue oval in that event.

That alone made the Tigerhawk sophomore a bit emotional on Thursday night.

“These three are seniors and I won’t have them next year,” Smith said. “We all knew we could do better than what we were running. I think the order helped. I was a lot more comfortable with it. I liked having Caylee on my end because we are both first-year hurdlers.

“There were a lot more people than I thought. I was nervous at first, but it was a fun experience.”

Underwood also competed in the 100-meter hurdles for the second time in her career. She finished 11th for the second straight season with a time of 15.77 seconds on Friday. She needed a 15.63 to advance to Saturday’s final.

The Tigerhawk senior came into the state meet seeded 12th. Treynor’s Clara Teigland had the fastest time in prelims and won the state championship on Saturday with a time of 14.92.

“I ran my second-best time of the year,” Underwood said. “That’s pretty satisfying, but I can always be a little cleaner with my form.”

The three departing seniors left their mark on the program and will be missed, according to Colfax-Mingo head girls’ track and field coach Zach Tomas.

“Our goal for the shuttle hurdle was to run under 1:10 and we far exceeded that, dropping over a second,” Tomas said. “It was a total team effort. Carley came up just short of her goal of being a state medalist, but she bested her qualifying time and went out with her second-fastest time ever.”