Newton girls show off depth in another meet championship

LE GRAND — Showing off its depth with a plethora of top-three finishes, the Newton girls track and field won another meet championship on Thursday.

This time, the Cardinals won five events, doubled up in five individual events and finished first or second in five relays at the East Marshall Girls Invitational.

“Every night is a full team effort, but tonight really showed the depth of the team and also took some digging in to get it done,” Newton head girls track and field coach Rachelle Tipton said. “We have had a busy run of meets, and a lot of wind, but this team keeps delivering.”

The Cardinals won the meet championship with 159 points. That was 69 points clear of runner-up Roland-Story (90). The rest of the top five featured host East Marshall (75), Union Community (74) and Bondurant-Farrar (69).

The rest of the 12-team field included Grinnell (57), BCLUW (54), Oskaloosa (49), Nevada (39), South Tama County (27), Gladbrook-Reinbeck (24) and Montezuma (22).

The Cardinals won three relays, but their top performance came in an event they didn’t win.

The 4x100 relay team of BrookLynn Britton, Lola Rivera, Camryn Klein and Lauren Clarke finished second in a season-best 51.05 seconds.

That time secured their spot in the annual Drake Relays next week, but Newton’s next fastest four times also would have qualified.

The shuttle hurdle relay team also is headed to the Drake Relays. The quartet of Klein, Macy Lampe, Mack Sims and Tori White won the race in 1 minute, 8.58 seconds. That time wouldn’t have qualified for Drake, but the foursome went 1:07.4 earlier in the week to lock up their spot.

The Cardinals won the 4x400 and sprint medley relays, too, while placing second in the 4x200 and third in the 4x800.

The winning sprint medley relay team featured Lampe, Klein, Rivera and Bella Winther, and they won the race in 1:57.2.

Alex Riney, Winther, Harper Barton and Clarke won the 4x400 in a season-best 4:15.3 and the 4x200 relay team of Klein, Rivera, Winther and Clarke placed second in a season-best 1:47.94.

One of the team’s six third-place finishes came in the 4x800 relay. That quartet of Harper Barton, Riney, Temple Barton and Sarah Malow finished the race in 10:52.18.

Clarke also will compete in the Drake Relays in the 100 dash. She finished second in the race on Thursday in 13.27, but it was her time of 12.51 earlier this season that locked up her spot.

Newton’s individual wins came from White in the 100 hurdles and Alexis Sorensen in the 1,500. Newton also doubled up in the 1,500, 3,000, 100 hurdles, 400 hurdles and high jump.

Sorensen won the 1,500 in a career-best time of 5:21.39 and Temple Barton was sixth in 5:39.91. Sorensen (career-best 11:30.1) and Audrey Muckler (11:38.01) went 2-3 in the 3,000.

White’s winning time in the 100 hurdles was clocked in 16.12 and Lampe finished third in 16.92.

Sims (1:14.56) edged White (1:14.60) for third in the 400 hurdles, Rivera (27.76) placed second in the 200 and Harper Barton (2:32.89) took second in the 800.

White finished third in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 0 inches. Ellie DeVries came in sixth in 4-8.

Brooke Garvis (32-9 3/4) placed third in the shot put and Addie Hammerly (98-0) was fourth in the discus.

“There were less events won in this team championship — the team won this by still fighting for those other point positions, and in the depth of the events that had two scoring athletes,” Tipton said.