Rams send 17 to state track meet

DENISON - The Glenwood boys and girls track teams combined to qualify in 16 events at this week’s Iowa State Track and Field Meet.

In the state qualifying meet in Denison, Glenwood placed second in the both of the team standings with the boys finishing as the runners up to Sergeant Bluff-Luton (178 to 145) and the girls finishing second to the host Monarchs (176 to 126).

The state track and field meet gets underway Thursday in Class 1A and 4A at 9 a.m. The Class 2A and 3A portion begins at 2 p.m.

The Glenwood girls, who struggled with injuries much of the season, qualified in five events for Des Moines.

The Rams lone gold medal at the state qualifier came from their 4x800-meter relay team of Arianna Springer, Kate Kaufman, Jillian Finnegan and Danielle Hardcastle. The foursome bested the field with a time of 10:16.19.

Other relays earning spots at state were the 4x200-meter relay (Sadey Allgood, Jaeda Wilson, Bailey Ostrander, Devon Bomer) and the 4x400-meter relay (Wilson, Hardcastle, Allgood, Bomer).

Earning individual spots were Katelyn Wilwerding in the 400-meter hurdles, and Sydney Biermann in the shot.

“We had hoped to get a few more entries into the state meet, but we’re thankful for the five we have,” Faust said.  “We aren’t coming in seeded particularly high in our events, but we’ll give it our best shot and the final standings will take care of themselves.”

Faust was obviously proud of his five event state qualifiers but what stood out to the Rams’ coach was the way his team bounced back after some races didn’t go how we had hoped. 

“On several occasions, we had a race not go how we had hoped and the girls came back and ran at or better than their season’s best,” Faust said. “As they have done all year, I think almost all of our girls did a great job controlling their attitude and effort. 

The Glenwood boys qualified for state in 12 events, just slightly under what Coach Mark Starner thought his team might have a shot at.

“Prior to the meet, we thought we might be able to get 14 things in, but as the meet went on, we thought that it might be a challenge,” Starner said. “We knew that if we were in the top of most events, that we would have chance to qualify due to the quality of the district that we were in.  But once the dust settled at the district meet, we knew we had seven things automatically qualify and knew that our 4x200 was pretty solid, but was unsure about the other four things that would eventually qualify.”

The Glenwood boys won three individual golds at Denison, with Nate Kennedy (400-meters), Kolten Wilwerding (long jump) and Caleb Sanders (discus) earning automatic bids to state. Kennedy’s time of 49.74 is the best in the state this year.

The Rams’ shuttle hurdle relay team (Cody Buresh, Brady Weddum, Wilwerding and Austin Tye) also won top honors with a time of 1:00.1.

Also punching their tickets to state were Mavrick Decker (200-meter dash), Tye (400-meter hurdles) as well as the Rams’ 4x100-meter, 4x200-meter, 4x400-meter, 4x800-meter and sprint medley relay teams.