City High Impressive En Route to First 4×800 Title Since 2013
Click here for more photos from Iowa City High at the state track meet.
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
DES MOINES – Standing near the finish line waiting for the baton and chance to anchor a state title relay team JP Rethwisch saw his prep career flash before his eyes.
The City High senior saw it all.
All the workouts during his four-year track career. All the time, the sweat and the races and the close calls.
“I was thinking about how I am a senior and all four years of my training have gone into this moment,” Rethwisch said. “I knew when I had a chance to win I had to give it everything. It’s my fourth time running the 4×800 at this meet and I had to get one.”
Once the baton reached Rethwisch he never saw anyone in front of him.
Rethwisch blazed a 1:55.9 split on the anchor leg to put the finishing touches on the first 4×800 title for City High since 2013 as the Little Hawks claimed the title in 7:49.41 on Thursday at the Class 4A state track and field meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.
“When I was lining up to get the baton and I saw we were way out in front it was one of the scariest moments of my life,” Rethwisch said. “I was just shaking waiting to get it and when I got it I just ran with everything I had.”
Seniors Jimmy Momberg and Lucas Firmstone and junior Daniel Brown teamed with Rethwisch as City High won its seventh stat title in the 4×800 in the second fastest time in program history.
All four City High runners clocked splits of faster than 1:57.9 as the Little Hawks finished nearly two seconds clear of runner-up Johnston.
“All of us have been working and working for the past four years,” Brown said. “We have some great senior leaders and we all pushed each other each and every single day in practice no matter what we were doing because we knew this was possible all season.”
When City High cut better than 10 seconds off its previous top time at last week’s district meet it seemed like a once-in-a-season type performance to some and perhaps a fluke to others.
To City High it seemed like just the beginning.
The Little Hawks went from running an 8:06.97 at the Mississippi Valley Conference divisional meet on May 3 to a posting the top time in the state this spring at 7:55.21 at the district meet last Thursday.
City High came to the blue oval at Drake Relays oozing confidence as the top-seed.
“That completely changed the atmosphere at practice and we gained some confidence that I don’t think we used to have,” Momberg said of the district win. “Today we ran with that confidence and it turned into something great on the track.”
City High was dominant from the opening gun.
The Little Hawks nearly went wire-to-wire, trailing only briefly in the opening 800 meters while posting the 21st fastest time in state history.
“It means everything because there have been times when we haven’t been dominant and we knew we could be dominant,” Momberg said. “Putting it together last week showed that we were absolutely capable of it this week and we were all ready today.”
Momberg logged a 1:57.8 split on the opening leg and had City High dead even with Ames after 800 meters.
Brown had a comfortable lead when he handed the baton to Firmstone, a senior that only recently was reinserted into the 4×800 lineup after an up and down season.
Firmstone called his early-season times ‘garbage’ on Thursday, pointing out he ran a 2:10 split at the Forwald/Coleman relays last month.
In the final 800 of his career Firmstone ripped off a 1:57.8 split that gave the Little Hawks a comfortable cushion.
“Running is in your head, unless you are a freak athlete then maybe it’s in your legs but mostly it’s in your head and my head just wasn’t in it at the start of the season,” Firmstone said. “At the end I realized that I had to give it my all for my guys, for my friends.”
The rest was up to senior anchor Rethwisch who was a member of the City High 4×800 relay teams that placed seventh the past two seasons.
Rethwisch logged a career-best split in the final 4×800 of his City High career as the Little Hawks finished just a second off the top time in program history.
“Last year I got really sick in the middle of the season and missed four weeks of racing and never got to where I wanted to be, this year I have been running more consistently fast and I still wasn’t where I wanted to be,” Rethwisch said. “I finally got to where I felt like I could be running 1:55,” Rethwisch said. “It felt amazing.”
Class 4A State Track and Field Meet
At Drake Stadium in Des Moines
Team scores – 1. West High 23; 2. Waukee 21; 3. Pleasant Valley 16; 3. West Des Moines Dowling 16; 5. West Des Moines Valley 14; 6. Johnston 13; 7. Ames 12; 8. Cedar Rapids Prairie 11; 9. Waterloo East 10; 9. City High 10.
Individual results
(Champion; Area Participants)
400 – 1. Austin West (West High) 47.94; 7. Gabe Caruthers (West High) 49.91
3,200 – 1. Konnor Sommer (Pleasant Valley) 9:15.79; 8. Kolby Greiner (West High) 9:40.67; 15. Ry Threlkeld-Wiegand (City High) 9:54.97
4×800 – 1. City High (Jimmy Momberg, Daniel Brown, Lucas Firmstone, JP Rethwisch) 7:49.41; 11. West High (Jeff Garbutt, Raymond Yang, Ethan McAreavy, Ian Prescott) 8:06.86
Discus – 1. Jonathan Gannon (West High) 178-6; 22. Ethan Postler (West High) 117-7.
High jump – 1. Jacee Clark (Waterloo East) 6-8; 17. Tevon Williamson (City High) 5-11