Solon Wins 4×800; Storms To Early Lead in Class 3A Team Race With Strong First Day at State Track and Field Meet
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
DES MOINES – All four members of the 2021 Solon state title winning 4×800 relay returned this season.
In an effort meant to maximize team potential team points Solon coach Brent Sands made a switch to the 4×800 squad that returned intact swapping out senior standout Emma Bock for another senior Meghan O’Neill.
O’Neill made the move a wise one on Thursday at the Class 3A State Track and Field Meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.
O’Neill gave Solon an early lead with a strong opening leg as the Spartans led nearly from wire-to-wire while winning the Class 3A 4×800 relay title for the second consecutive season.
“This isn’t the 4×800 that we’ve been running all year but we knew we were going to put Emma in the 800 to get more team points,” O’Neill said. “This is Kaia (Holtkamp) and Is last time running this so we wanted to go out with a bang.”
O’Neill teamed with sophomores Gracie Federspiel and Anna Quillin and senior Kaia Holtkamp to win in a time of 9:34.41.
Carlisle got a stellar anchor leg from its senior standout Ainsley Erzen and finished runner-up in 9:41.6.
“We knew that Erzen was going to anchor for them so the goal was to build as big of gap as we could from start,” O’Neill said. “It’s been a good day. A good start for sure.”
The 4×800 title along with a fourth-place finish from Kayla Young in the 3,000 and top-four finishes from Bock and Federspiel in the 400 put Solon atop the Class 3A team standings after one day.
Solon finished Thursday with 26 points, 10 more than Carlisle while ADM is third with 14 after five events.
“It’s the way we wanted to start,” Holtkamp said. “We have a long way to go but this is how we had to start.”
It was O’Neill that got the Solon 4×800 off to a strong start.
“Meghan is such a good person to start races because she is so calm before races, she keeps the whole team composed,” Solon senior Kaia Holtkamp said. “She is a great leader for our team.”
O’Neill has been a fixture on the Solon 4×800 team this season helping the Spartans to a third-place finish at the Drake Relays.
That came with Bock, a Texas Tech recruit, on the squad.
On Thursday, O’Neill stepped up in the absence of her classmate giving Solon a lead it would never give up.
She ran to the front of the pack early and had the lead to herself by the 400 meter mark clocking a 2:24.4 opening leg.
“I came around the corner and I saw ADM and Carlisle right next to me,” O’Neill said. “We are going against ADM for team points and we were trying to get a lead on Carlisle in this race so I had to get us a lead.”
One of three members back from last year’s title team, Federspiel pushed the margin for the Spartans with a 2:21.9 split on the second leg.
“We wanted to come back here and try to repeat our success,” Federspiel said, “That was definitely a goal for us.”
Quillin had the Spartans out to a lead when she handed of to Holtkamp who took the reins from Bock as the anchor.
“Our coaches have been telling us all year we clocked the numbers even without Emma we can win this we just have to work your hardest and push yourself in this race,” Quillin said. “Having faith in our coaches and believing them we knew with this group we would be able to win.”
Holtkamp ripped off a personal best 2:16.79 split to hold off another herculean effort from Erzen who charged from sixth into second place with a 2:09.261.
Last season Erzen clocked a 2:09.172 split on the 800-meter anchor leg of the distance medley relay that Solon won.
Holtkamp knew Erzen was coming but held her off with a strong anchor leg of her own.
“She is intimidating, she is somebody that I want to compare myself too, she is a really good athlete but I think we won this as a team,” Holtkamp said. “We all were skilled enough to be able to win it as a team.”
Young got the day started for Solon with a fourth-place finish in the 3,000 in a time of 11:08.56.
Bock was third in the 400 in 57.09 while Federspiel was fourth in 58.08.
Class 3A State Track and Field Meet
At Drake Stadium
Team scores (Top 10; area teams) – 1. Solon 26; 2. Carlisle 16; 3. ADM 14; 4. Ballard 13; 5. Mount Vernon 10; 5. Mount Pleasant 10; 5. Western Dubuque 10; 8. Charles City 9; 8. Central DeWitt 9; 10. MOC-Floyd Valley 8.5; 28. Clear Creek Amana .5
State champions; area participants
400 – 1. Audrey Biermann (Western Dubuque) 54.56; 3. Emma Bock (Solon) 57.09; 4. Gracie Federspiel (Solon) 58.08
3,000 – 1. Paityn Noe (Ballard) 10:22.05; 4. Kayla Young (Solon) 11:08.56;
4×800 – 1. Solon (Meghan O’Neill, Gracie Federpsiel, Anna Quillin, Kaia Holtkamp) 9:34.41; 9. Clear Creek Amana (Kiera Rogers, Haidyn Barker, Kalin Rotzoll, Sam Schrage) 10:02.24
High jump – 1. Soren Maricle (Central DeWitt) 5-6; 8. Bliss Beck (Clear Creek Amana) 5-0; 16. Lilly Towne (Solon) 4-10
Discus – 1. Jadan Brumbaugh (Mount Pleasant) 151-10
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