Ankeny boys 4x200 relay team sets Iowa record, is hungry for more at Drake Relays

For never running together as a 4x200 relay team, Ankeny's crew of Logan Fairchild, Devon Akers, Jackson Belding and Tyler Sickerson had some lofty goals.

Once the group found out they would be the ones running the event for the Hawks, they set the bar high. With the fastest returning 100-meter-dash runner in Sickerson and the reigning 400-meter Class 4A state champion in Belding, they knew they could do some big things. They had their eyes firmly set on breaking the 1:26.17 state record set by West Des Moines Valley at the 2019 state meet.

On April 13 at the Jim Duncan High School Invitational, the conditions were not in their favor. With a 19 mph steady headwind coming down the final stretch for Sickerson's anchor leg, this didn't seem like the day to break Valley's mark

"It was pretty terrible," Sickerson joked.

From the gun, the handoffs from Fairchild to Akers and from Akers to Belding didn't help matters either.

"We had some pretty rocky handoffs, so I knew it was going to be closer than I was going to be happy with," Sickerson said.

Still, Sickerson peeked at the clock as he took the final handoff, seeing that the record was within reach. In that final 200 meters, he found another gear as he raced against the wind. He knew they were close, so he gave an extra lean and lunged across the finish line.

The final time? 1:26.12, five-hundredths of a second faster than the time set by Valley in 2019. Sickerson's lean was just enough.

After accomplishing the feat, the group remained steady, which comes as little surprise from a group led by Jordan Mullen, the coach of the Ankeny track and field program. Mullen was a former Iowa Hawkeye standout, who still Iowa's fifth-best 60-meter hurdles indoor time (7.7 seconds) and was a Big Ten champion in the outdoor 400-meter relay team in 2013.

His motto for this team is "hungry, humble and healthy," something that this 4x200 relay team lives by. In the few short weeks the 2024 outdoor season has been ongoing, the four runners each sit atop the leaderboards in several races.

Sickerson holds the fastest 100-meter (10.43 seconds) and 200-meter (21.38) times in the state, regardless of class. Fairchild is the third-fastest 100 runner in the state (10.65 seconds) and trails only Sickerson as the fastest 200 runner. In third in the 200 leaderboard behind Fairchild? Belding, running a 21.72 200. Fairchild (48.43) and Belding (48.66) are the third- and fourth-fastest 400 runners in the state as well.

Combine those three with a three-star, 6-foot-6 wide receiver in Akers, who has committed to play football at Northern Illinois next year, and it was a pretty simple formula to concoct the state's fastest-ever 4x200 relay time.

"We just ran our four strongest kids knowing that they fit really well on paper with their open times," Mullen said.

Ahead of the 2024 Drake Relays, the Hawks are a team to watch behind this group of speedsters. After finishing second as a team at the 2023 state track and field meet behind Johnston and third at last year's Drake Relays, the crew has plenty to run for.

As they came together for their photo shoot following the record-breaking performance, they told one another no smiling for the photos, only to break character and bust out in laughter.

Heading into the Drake Relays this week, just a month into the season, all of them are healthy and ready to keep slimming down their times in their pursuit of a state championship as a team and individually.

"Is that the best this group can do? Absolutely not," Mullen said, referring to the record time. "I won't put a cap on them."

Fairchild, Akers, Belding and Sickerson said their plan is to go fast.

"And win," they said in unison.

Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Ankeny track and field 4x200 team hungry for more at Drake Relays