Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Oisin Leopold wasn’t alone in his excitement earlier this month when the Iowa High School Athletic Association announced cold and windy weather was forcing district track meets to be delayed a day.

Athletes across the state celebrated the opportunity to compete for state meet spots in more favorable weather conditions.

Leopold was among the athletes most thrilled by the district postponement and it had little to do with anything involving track and field.

A standout hurdler on the City High track team Leopold is also an accomplished pianist and the Iowa Band Masters Association jazz band concert fell on the same night as the original date for district track.

“I wanted to go that concert really bad and they were on the same night and the past few months it was hard to decide,” Leopold explained. “It was a difficult decision.”

In the end Leopold didn’t have to make the decision.

He performed at the concert on Thursday and on Friday won the district title in the 110 hurdles to earn his first trip to the state track and field meet.

“The way it worked out was absolutely perfect for me,” Leopold said. “I got to do both and qualify for state and run at the finals. It couldn’t have worked out much better.”

The scheduling good fortune was a part of a great month of May for Leopold who backed up his district title with a strong state meet showing.

A late season push for Leopold actually started with a 110 hurdle win at the Mississippi Division meet.

Eight days later he won the district title in 14.98 and posted a career-best time of 14.81 in the prelims at the state meet last week.

“It was a really impressive little run he went on at the end of the season,” City High coach Mike Moore said. “He won the conference meet and he won the district and he did it against kids that had been beating him earlier in the year.”

The late-season surge by Leopold was the perfect finish to a junior season filled with steady improvement.

Leopold ended his sophomore season with a 15.67 career-best time in the 110 hurdles.

He dropped to 15.14 in his MVC divisional meet win and 14.98 a week later at the district meet.

Moore credits the junior season jump to the Leopold’s work ethic and attention to detail.

“I think it is his will to be successful in what he does, that’s really what it boils down to he doesn’t slack in anything he does,” Moore said. “His grades are excellent he’s part of the jazz band and they are elite, they do things very well there in our music program and he’s part of that.”

Leopold put the finishing touches on his strong season with a fifth-place finish at the state meet for his first career medal.

His 14.81 in the prelims qualified him for finals as the eighth-fastest time.

He moved up to fifth in the final in a time of 15.12 which was just off the fourth-place pace of Southeast Polk senior Jace Christensen.

“I was just glad to be in the finals race for sure,” Leopold said. “I’m happy with fifth, I moved up from eighth so that’s improvement and that is what I’m looking for.”

Though his time in the final wasn’t as fast as his career-best preliminary time Moore believes Leopold ran just as well in the final under more difficult conditions.

“His time was solid into a head wind, he didn’t have a head wind when he ran his 14.81 and he ran that 15.12 into a headwind and he ran against the best in 4A and he crushed it,” Moore said. “He absolutely ran beautiful.”

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