By Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – Another state meet, another medal in the throwing event for Solon.

Senior Jackson Walker became the latest Spartan to collect a state medal, finishing seventh in the Class 3A discus with a toss of 154-5 on Thursday at Drake Stadium.

“It’s a really gratifying thing especially since I’ve been working at this for four years,” Walker said. “This is a sport where it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to develop and you have to be patient with it so it’s a really good feeling to know that it paid off in the end.”

Walker became the latest Solon thrower to become a state medalist under the tutelage of throwing coach Brad Wymer.

This year the Spartans had two qualifiers in both the discus and shot put as fellow senior Jake Coons placed 13th Thursday with a toss of 144-2.

Junior Tyler Linderbaum and sophomore Coal Flansburg both enter Friday’s 3A shot put competition with top-six qualifying marks.

“When you have a coach like coach Wymer and that does everything that he does with the research he does and all the hard work he puts in then you know that if you are willing to put in the work with him it’s going to pay off in the end,” Walker said. “Coach Wymer is doing something right when all four of our throwers are making it to state and that’s just part of why I believe he is the best coach in the state of Iowa.”

Mount Vernon senior Tristan Wirfs won the 3A discus with a state meet record toss of 190-10.

Kerkhoff Earns Another Medal

For the second straight season Erin Kerkhoff will leave the state meet with a medal.

The Solon sophomore finished sixth in the 400 for the second year in a row in a career-best time of 58.76.

Davenport Assumption senior Joy Ripslinger won the 400 in a time of 56.29 to become the first girl in state history to ever win both the 3,000 and 400.

City High 4×800 is Seventh

The City High 4×800 foursome didn’t get exactly what it wanted on Thursday at the state meet.

Still, it was hard for head coach Mike Moore to be disappointed with what the Little Hawks did.

City High dropped better than two seconds off its season-best time and finished seventh in a time of 8:00.11.  

“I am really pleased with the season best and I know these kids well enough to know they gave us everything they’ve got,” Moore said. “A couple of them didn’t pr but they did the best they could and I’m really proud of those kids.”

The foursome of Jim McMillan, Jimmy Momberg, JP Rethwisch and Daniel Brown came with the goal of pushing for a title and a sub-eight-minute time.

City High just missed those marks but didn’t leave disappointed.

Any time you run a seasons-best and put points on the board you will take it,” Moore said. “I’m proud of what those guys did.”

The lone senior of the group, McMillan ripped of an unofficial 1:56 split on his lead off leg to give City High the lead after 800 meters.

 “We all went out there and we ran our best time by two or three seconds,” Brown said. “Jim led it off in a 1:56 in his last race on the 4×800 and handed it off in first and you can’t really ask for more than that.”