Woodward-Granger track sets multiple records, girls golf hits best score
Before a number of Tuesday events were cancelled, Woodward-Granger put together some top performances of the season this week. (Note: Events covered April 9-15)
Boys Track
At a pair of eight-team meets this week where the Hawks took sixth place at Knoxville on April 11 and third place Monday at Southeast Valley, Woodward-Granger caught a strong wind in one event in particular after breaking a program record.
The sprint medley relay team has their system down to a science at this point, looking for minor adjustments to climb the leaderboard, as they ran multiple times under 1 minute 40 seconds this season. With one change to the rotation that had the team’s previous best time, Talan Fuson, David Airhart, Owen Dunlavey and Cael Leighton grouped together in Knoxville for a new school record of 1:39.13 for first place that evening.
That lifted them into the top 30 times in Class 2A. And on Monday with Cooper Thielen in place of Airhart, the Hawks shaved .01 seconds off that time for another gold finish.
Chandler Drake, Colt Casey, Alex Younts and Leighton also made strides in the 4x400 relay with a new PR of 3:39.16 for first prize. Winning relays was officially a theme of the night as Woodward also won the 4x800 and 1600 sprint medley, with the latter now on the verge of hitting sub-4 minutes. And on his own, Leighton beat a meet record in the 400-meter dash at 52.40 seconds.
Girls Track
Running separate from the boys team on April 11, the Hawks placed third at Ogden’s meet among a crowd of six. For WCAC purposes, Ogden finished a few points ahead of Woodward while Madrid is a shell of its title-contending teams in last place.
Topping the charts, Eva Flesher took first place in the 3,000-meter run at 11 minutes 27.50 seconds. While behind her best time of the season set indoors in March, her top time ranks in the top 10 in Class 2A. She also took second place in the 1,500-meter run, outpaced by Madrid’s top long distance runner.
The crew of Hayden Thomas, Charissa Klocke, Riley McCaulley, Zoey Osmundson crossed the 1600 medley finish line first at 4:55.04.
On Monday, W-G placed seventh in an eight-team contest at Southeast Valley.
Boys Golf
After starting the season with a string of first place wins, the Hawks hosted seven teams on April 11 for half a round and took fourth place at 167 strokes in an afternoon that was decided by all of four strokes. ADM won with a score of 163.
Writing down the Hawks’ best score, Max Behrens and Casey Foster placed fifth overall with 40 strokes each. North Polk was the only other team that had a pair of teammates finish in the top-five.
Girls Golf
After tying ADM in a one-on-one meet on April with a season-low nine-hole score of 204, the Hawks took second place Monday in Bondurant on their first full round of the season. Scoring 398 as a unit, the team was led by seventh place McKenna Carroll (94) and eighth place Sophie Smith (98).
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Woodward-Granger track sets multiple records, girls golf hits best score
