Thursday evening, on May 14, City High hosted the State Qualifying Meet. Including themselves, seven other teams attended; Cedar Rapids Washington, Iowa City Liberty, West, Johnston, Mason City, Ottumwa, and Prairie High School. That evening was very eventful for the team, 15 out of 19 events qualified for state, including season and personal bests, and another school record was broken and set by Rachal Haack ’26. Out of all events that were competed in last night by the City High’s girls’ track team, six relays and nine individual events will go to the State track meet, next week.
The meet’s field events got off on the right track. Haack ’26 and Hannah Braun ’26 threw for City High in the shot put and discus; both came in second and third, scoring a combined 28 points for the team. Haack ’26 previously broke the school record for dicus, but nothing was stopping her from doing it again last night. A personal best and new City High school record for discus was thrown by Haack ’26 with a distance of 150 feet and nine inches. More personal bests were seen in Braun ’26, who threw a personal best in both discus and shot put last evening. Both throwers will compete next week at the State Meet. On theme with second place and automatic qualification, Alice Edelen ’27 places with a jump of five feet and one inch, jumping a standard of excellence for Edelen.
The Sprint Medley Relay team started running events off well with an automatic qualification of one minute and 48 seconds. The relay team launched off with Dede Aboussa-Folly ’26, to Jaydah Kent ’29, and ran a personal best in her 100-meter split, then to Ellie Fraga ’27, who ran a season’s best in her 200-meter split, and finished with Maeve Bowen-Burt ’28 to close it. The four have continued to improve throughout the season and are excited to see how they compete at State. Continuing to be dominant in the meet, Fraga ’27 later ran in the open 100-meter race and placed third with a time of 12.6 seconds. Scoring six points, Fraga ’27 is qualified and plans to run the open 100 meters at state.
Other highlights of the night included the girls’ 4×800-meter relay coming in second and automatically qualifying for State. The four runners were Calissa Fruin ’28 to start the relay off with a personal best in her split, followed by Eliza Doster ’28, Naomi Downing-Sheer ’27, and Lucy Sherbone ’27 to anchor. The four ran a time of nine minutes and 52 seconds. Fruin ’28 keeps her streak of qualifying later runs the open 800-meter race and places fifth with a time of two minutes and 22 seconds, also scoring more individual points of four for Fruin ’28.
Going two for two, Abigail Burns ’26 qualifies for both open events she ran; 1500-meter and 3000-meter races. Burns ’26 scored a total of 14 points last night with a time of four minutes and 51 seconds in the 1500-meter and ten minutes and 31 seconds in the 3000-meter race.
On the hurdling side of the meet, the shuttle hurdle team ran a season-best time of one minute and seven seconds, placing second overall in the meet and scoring eight points for the team. Shuttle Hurdle was run by Gloria Konu ’26, Bernadette Hamilton ’28, Madeline Fraga ’29, and Willow Schultz ’27 to finish the race. With this time, the four runners also placed themselves on City High’s top ten list for the shuttle hurdle relay. Only a few events later, Fraga ’29 ran the open 100-meter hurdle race and scored six points with a time of 16.05 seconds, and qualified for the State meet. Schultz ’27 also came back again later in the meet to run the open 100-meter hurdles and placed third in the race. Shultz ’27 scored six points for the team with a time of one minute and 5.26 seconds. Shultz ’27 time was also a personal best for her. On track for 400-meter hurdles, Maeve Bown-Burt ’28 strides throughout her 400-meter hurdles race and places first overall, scoring ten points for her team.
Results from Thursday’s meet will send 18 individuals to compete in field, open races, and/or relay events at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa. The State track meet will take place on May 21-23.
