City High Caps Strong State Meet With Two State Medals on Saturday
Click here for more photos from Iowa City High at the state track meet.
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
DES MOINES – City High came to Des Moines’ Drake Stadium this week as an underdog.
Put more bluntly, the Little Hawks entered the state track and field meet as an afterthought in the Class 4A field following back-to-back state meet showings that ended with one medal and a combined 7.5 points.
Time and time again this week City High showed its now where you start that matters but where you finish.
City High capped its best state meet showing in four years with a pair of top-five performances on Saturday to finish ninth in 4A team standings with 27 points.
“We talked this week that it didn’t matter where we were at coming in, all that counted was what we did here,” City High freshman Ayana Lindsey said. “We came back and showed them what we could really do.”
After scoring four points at the state meet last season and 3.5 in 2016 the Little Hawks rolled up 27 points this week on the way to their first top-10 finish since 2014.
City High entered the state meet with one event seeded in the top five off district performances.
With a fourth-place finish in the sprint medley and a fifth-place showing in the 4×400 on Saturday the Little Hawks closed the weekend with six top-five performances.
“We just have a mindset that we are going to be the best,” City High senior Tiara Green said. “Even if we are starting low we are going to be the best. We say we are going to come out and try our hardest and don’t hold back.”
All 27 of the Little Hawks team points came on the final two days of the three-day meet.
After scoring 18 points on Friday to vault into the top 10 of the team standings, City High carried that momentum over to Saturday when the Little Hawks’ sprint medley relay clocked a season-best time of 1:49.46 in a fourth-place finish in the first event of the day.
City High entered with the 11th best time in the sprint medley but Lindsey held off Southeast Polk Natalie Clement at the finish line as the Little Hawks won the second of three heats.
“I knew I had to get out and I wasn’t going to let anyone pass me,” Lindsey said. “I knew I had to get out there and I knew I had that last kick in the last 100 and I was going to finish it no matter what.”
Juniors Emma Clark and Emma Cooper and sophomore Azzura Sartini-Rideout joined Lindsey on the sprint medley team that took ran more than half a second faster than its previous best time.
City High put the finishing touches on its strong state meet showing with a season-best time in the 4×400.
Green, Lindsey, Caroline Schaeckenbach and CeCe Kelly Harvey combined to run a 3:59.61, the first time the Little Hawks broke the four-minute mark in the event since 2008.
“I told myself to give it all I’ve got,” Green said. “That’s what I did and I was happy with how it went for my last 400 in high school.”
The time in the 4×400 was more than six seconds faster than the Little Hawks ran at the district meet a week ago and just .08 off of third place Ames.
“I’m super happy,” Lindsey said. “We ran our best time of the year and I thought we gave it everything.”
The goal first-year coach Terry Coleman set for the Little Hawks this week was a top-15 state finish.
By matching or exceeding its seed in all six scoring events City High easily met that goal.
“Honestly, at first I didn’t think that was possible,” Lindsey said. “As we started going I knew the team chemistry was so good I knew we could do anything together.”
Perhaps the best news from the breakthrough weekend for the Little Hawks is that every athlete to help produce points for the Little Hawks return next season with the exception of Green and fellow senior Sydney DePrenger.
“It’s been great running with all the young girls,” Green said. “We have a lot of great young 400 runners that are already running 58 or 59 seconds and I just tell them ‘wait until you are seniors you’re going to be so fast’. It’s been amazing working with them.”
Class 4A State Track and Field Meet
At Drake Stadium in Des Moines
Team scores – 1. Waukee 122; 2. West High 76; 3. Southeast Polk 70; 4. Linn-Mar 55; 5. Ames 38; 6. Cedar Falls 37; 7. Pleasant Valley 36.5; 8. West Des Moines Dowling 33; 9. City High 27; 9. Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln 27
Individual results
(Champion; Area Participants)
100 – 1. Sydney Milani (Southeast Polk) 11.49
200 – 1. Sydney Milani (Southeast Polk) 23.68
800 – 1. Sydney Milani (Southeast Polk) 2:10.38; 3. Deniz Ince (West High) 2:12.78; 7. Bailey Nock (West High) 2:15.39
1,500 – 1. Bailey Nock (West High) 4:38.09; 2. Deniz Ince (West High) 4:42.28
100 Hurdles – 1. Sydney Winger (Waukee) 14.12; 6. Kitra Bell (West High) 15.03
Sprint Medley Relay – 1. Linn-Mar 1:43.64; 4. City High (Emma Clark, Azzura Sartini-Rideout, Emma Cooper, Ayana Lindsey) 1:49.64
Shuttle Hurdle Relay – 1. Waukee 1:01.09; 4. West High (Peyton Steva, Matayia Tellis, Leah Elliott, Kitra Bell) 1:04.75
4×100 – 1. Linn-Mar 48.0
4×400 – 1. Waukee 3:57.68; 5. City High (Ayana Lindsey, Tiara Green, Caroline Schaeckenbach, CeCe Kelly-Harvey) 3:59.61