Consider Thursday night’s work a job well done.
Despite an annoying drizzle present throughout the night, West Liberty’s track and field program will contest 11 events with nine unique individuals at this week’s state meet after a great night during Tipton’s district/regional meet.
The boys are sending seven competitions which include all three hurdle events with high expectations inside the Blue Oval.
Junior Ryker Dengler showed why he’s a threat to medal with district championships in the 110-meter hurdles (15.29 seconds) and 400-meter hurdles (56.37 seconds).
Additionally, he ran the third leg of the shuttle hurdle relay with senior Jayce McHugh and juniors Cameron Iske and Seth Axsom. They won the district title with a time of 1:01.08.
This team will be seeded fifth at State. McHugh will be seeded eighth in the 400-meters and 12th in the 110-meters.
Dengler, McHugh and Axsom qualified for four events in total. They all played a role on the 4x200 meter relay (1:32.31 with sophomore Owen Daufeldt) which took second place.
On the 4x100-meter relay team was Axsom, McHugh, Daufeldt and sophomore Ramzes Moran (44.38 seconds — second place).
This same quartet qualified in the sprint medley relay as an at-large selection after placing fourth at districts. They completed their race in 1:36.31 seconds.
As far as state seedings go, this squad will be 17th in the sprint medley and 13th in the 4x100 and the 4x200 will be 12th.
On the girls’ side, it was sophomore Payton Maas making headlines as a four-event qualifier in the wheelchair competitions.
She will race at Drake Stadium this week in the 100, 200, 400 and 800-meter open events as the top seed in each event.
At regionals, her times for each race were 30.36 seconds, 1:00.38, 2:08.71 and 4:31.83 respectively.
Joining her will be freshman Sully Hall who will kick off the event for the Comets by participating in the long jump Thursday morning.
Hall became district champion with a leap of 16-09.50, which edged out Wilton’s Catie Hook by a foot and a half. She will be seeded eighth in Des Moines.
Aside from the long jump, the only other West Liberty event running on Thursday is the boys’ shuttle hurdle relay prelims at approximately 2 p.m.
Friday will then be a busy day with the boys’ 110-meter hurdle prelims (10:40 a.m.), boys’ 4x200-meter relay final (11:30 a.m.), 400-meter hurdle finals (12:20 p.m.), 4x100 meter prelims (1 p.m.), and Para 800-meter final (2:00 p.m.).
The Comets are guaranteed to have multiple events go on Saturday with the sprint medley relay final (9:50 a.m.), Para 100-meter final (12:40 p.m.), Para 200-meter finals (1:45 p.m.) and Para 400-meter final (3:15 p.m.).
Note that times are approximate. The most the meet will run ahead of schedule is 15 minutes unless incoming weather necessitates the event to stay ahead of schedule.