April 20, 2018 By Chris Varney
The field for the 109th Drake Relays will not be announced until the weekend but last night was the final night for high school athletes to put together a qualifying score. All entries and potential entries had to be submitted by Midnight last night. Over the next couple of days, the Drake Relays staff are putting the field together. While we wait, there are some certainties however.
Grinnell’s Sienna Durr will be in the field next week in the 100 hurdles and the long jump. Durr did not improve her scores in both events in Newton last night but she is currently ranked 24th in the 100 hurdles and tied for 16th in the long jump. Durr will have a busy day next Friday: the 100 hurdle prelims will be at 8 am with the finals at 10:30 am and the long jump starts at 9:30 am, and then there’s a soccer game that night against Knoxville back home. That’s a full day.
HLV’s Haley Coats made the Drake Relays field in the 100 meters. Coats was in 27th place in the state going into last night’s meet in Wellman. She needed a strong night and got it — getting a PR with a time of 12.72 seconds and it moved her to the 25th spot. They take the top 32 so Coats will run next week on the Blue Oval. Her teammate Macie Boots was a lock for the field in the 400 hurdles, she has the 2nd best time in the state at 1:05.13. Coats will run in the 100 prelims at 8:30 am Friday morning while Boots will compete next Saturday at 12:45 pm.
The Benton girls team will be sending seven different entries to the Drake Relays. Twin sister Ellie Masten and Elizabeth Masten both made the field in the 100 meter dash. Ellie last night scored a 12.33 second run which ranks second in the state behind Darby Thomas of Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln (12.31). Grace Martensen posted a sub 15 second time in the 100 hurdles (14.96) and currently ranks 4th in the state. Benton’s 4×1, 4×2, shuttle hurdle, and sprint medley teams will all be competing next week.
Madison Trimpe of English Valleys will be going to the Drake Relays — the Bears did not have a meet scheduled last night so Trimpe had to wait and see what scores would be posted. Only one girl passed her and another tied her so Trimpe is currently tied for 21st at 121-09 and they take the top 24. Trimpe will be throwing at Drake Friday morning at 9 am.
On the boys side, Montezuma’s Jordon Bender will have to sweat things out until the field is released over the weekend. Bender is currently tied for 32nd in the 100 meter dash at 11.20 seconds. The Drake Relays have 32 spaces available so either somebody will drop out and not enter their time or it will have to come down to some sort of tiebreaker which is uncertain. We will see what happens on that front.
The Grinnell boys unfortunately will not send anybody to Drake next week. The 4×800 relay team of Brett Gibson, Landon Steffen, Matthew Cunningham, and Joe Simon got a season low 8:13.11 last night in Newton but its only good enough for the 21st best time and Drake takes the top 16. Grinnell’s Kylee Neighbors also came up short — she has jumped 5-02 several times this year but needed to go 5-03 last night to make the field but missed at that height. She still won the meet in Newton.
There are more local athletes that will be in the Drake Relays — we will have a complete list when everything is released this weekend.