State Medal Worth the Wait for City High Senior Sekafetz
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
DES MOINES – Like every other spring sports athlete in the state Jordan Sekafetz felt the sting of a lost season last spring.
When track and field returned this year Sekafetz felt the weight of being leader on a roster filled with first-year athletes.
On Saturday Sekafetz finally felt what she had waited for more than years for – the satisfaction of earning a state medal.
Sekafetz anchored the City High shuttle hurdle relay team to third-place finish on Saturday at the Class 4A state track and field meet on a sun-splashed afternoon at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.
“It feels amazing, all the out of season training and coming in early and staying late at practice it’s all worth it,” Sekafetz said. “We lost last year and I wanted to make up for what I lost.”
Sekafetz earned the first state medal of her career as a sophomore in 2019 helping the Little Hawk shuttle hurdle relay team to a fifth-place finish.
It was a long wait filled with ups and downs between the first and final state meet medal for Sekafetz.
After her junior season was cancelled Sekafetz went from sophomore up and comer to senior leader in the blink of an eye.
“I felt that pressure because everyone was looking up to me,” Sekafetz said. “It’s been a crazy year trying to train and bring in all these freshmen that haven’t run since seventh grade and trying to show what high school is like. I’ve tried to take those younger kids under my wing.”
Through it all Sekafetz kept on producing.
She qualified for the state meet in four events but had to wait for the final race of her prep career to earn her long-awaited state medal.
Sekafetz just missed medals in the 100 hurdles and distance medley relays finishing ninth in both events.
“Having an entire team look at you, you always feel like you have to do good but sometimes you have to not run your best or to have a bad race because it shows them that even though you are a leader you aren’t always going to be on top,” Sekafetz said. “You are going to have to have falls and you have to learn from that and grow for that.”
Finally on Saturday Sekafetz got what she had been waiting for teaming with senior Maya Morales, freshman Sierra Pruessner and junior Mia DePrenger to finish third in a time of 1:05.47.
“Jordan has been a great leader,” DePrenger said. “It’s been a huge step for her to come up this year but having that leadership role has made her better herself. It’s pushed her to get better.”
The fact the final medal for Sekafetz came in the shuttle hurdle relay is impressive in itself.
City High entered the state meet with the 11th fastest time in 4A this season at 1:08.49.
The 1:09.31 that the Little Hawks clocked at the state qualifying meet last week was 13th fastest among state-bound teams.
City High dropped nearly a second off its best time in Thursday’s prelims entering the finals with the fourth fastest time.
“We knew that we were in a good position at fourth from prelims,” Sekafetz said. “We knew if we ran well we had a chance to being in that top four if we were confident and ran like we could.”
City High again cut a big chunk of time, dropping more than two seconds from its prelim time with its 1:05.47 in the final.
Waukee won the title with the second fastest time in state history at 1:00.75 while Cedar Falls was runner-up at 1:04.72.
“We didn’t know how today was going to go,” DePrenger said. “It was a surprise to see that we were going to be in the fastest heat because we weren’t even sure if we were going to qualify and so it was nice to run against all the really, really good teams.”
For Sekafetz it was the perfect end to a long wait.
“Our goal was just to come out here and run our fastest time,” Sekafetz said. “We lost last year so trying to make up what we lost.”
After Sekafetz closed her career with a win City High closed the meet on a high note with a runner-up finish in the 4×400 relay.
The Little Hawk foursome of CeCe Kelly-Harvey, DePrenger, Iris Wedemeyer and Lillian Reynolds ran the fastest time in program history clocking a 3:56.76.
City High entered the meet with the fourth fastest time in 4A this season and ran a season-best 4:02.59 to post the fifth fastest time in Friday’s prelims.
In Saturday’s final the Little Hawks used back-to-back 59-second legs from Kelly-Harvey and DePrenger to pull in front of the pack of teams chasing Ames which won in 3:54.72.
Reynolds put the finishing touches on the runner-up finish with an impressive 57.64 split on the anchor leg.
The runner-up finish in the 4×400 vaulted City High to 15th in the Class 4A team standings with 21 points.
Class 4A Girls State Track and Field Meet
At Drake Stadium in Des Moines
Team scores – 1. Waukee 96; 2. Pleasant Valley 57; 3. Ames 52; 4. Ankeny 40; 4. Cedar Falls 40; 6. Cedar Rapids Prairie 38; 7. Liberty High 35; 8. Sioux City East 33; 9. Sioux City West 29; 9. Norwalk 29; 15. City High 21; 23. West High 8
Individual results (event winners; area competitors)
100 – 1. Holly Duax (Sioux City West) 12.12
200 – 1. Holly Duax (Sioux City West) 24.59
800 – 1. Ashlyn Keeney (Liberty High) 2:12.7; 13. Cori Mac (Liberty High) 2:21.54
1,500 – 1. Ashlyn Keeney (Liberty High) 4:41.3; 18. Cami Mac (Liberty High) 4:59.14
100 hurdles – 1. Mackenzie Carner (Waukee) 14.54
Shuttle hurdle relay – 1. Waukee 1:00.75; 3. City High (Sierra Pruessner, Maya Morales, Mia DePrenger, Jordan Sekafetz) 1:05.47
Sprint medley relay – 1. Cedar Rapids Prairie 1:46.65; 19. City High (Sierra Pruessner, Jordan Sekafetz, Ava Bell, Lillian Reynolds) 1:53.91
4×100 relay – 1. Pleasant Valley 49.91
4×400 relay – 1. Ames 3:54.72; 2. City High (CeCe Kelly-Harvey, Mia DePrenger, Iris Wedemeyer, Lillian Reynolds) 3:56.76
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