Bulldogs Boys Finish Third, Girls Finish Ninth in Coed Track Meet

The Hampton-Dumont-CAL (HDCAL) boys and girls track and field teams both competed in the Jim Basye Coed Relays at HDCAL on Friday, May 2. The boys finished third out of 10 teams with a total of 82 points while the girls finished ninth out of 14 teams with a total of 41 points. 

The Bulldogs boys team would finish in the top five in six different individual events. Colin Bird finished first in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 55.76 seconds. Beau Morton finished first in the shot put throw with a throw of 46 feet, 7.5 inches and finished second in discus throw with a throw of 140 feet, 9 inches. Briggs Gruelke finished second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 54.03 seconds. Jacob Donnenworth finished third in the 1010-meter hurdles with a time of 17.21 seconds. Brady Harr finished fourth in shot put with a throw of 41 feet. Isaac Sauke finished fifth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.72 seconds. 

The boys also finished in the top five in four different team events. The team of Collin Bird, Jacob Donnenworth, Carter Arends and Jory Angstman finished first in the 4x100-meter shuttle hurdle relay with a time of 1 minute, 7 seconds. Arends, Isaac Sauke, Carson Helmke and Bayden Wrich made up the 4x100-meter relay team that finished second for the Bulldogs with a time of 45.32 seconds. Arends, Helmke, Wrich, and Joseph Powers made up the 4x200-meter relay team that finished forth with a time of 1 minute, 38.88 seconds. Bird, Powers, Sauke and Briggs Gruelke made up the 4x400-meter relay team that finished fifth with a time of 3 minutes, 42.42 seconds. The head coach of the Bulldogs boys team, Dan Aalbers, was very happy with how his team performed in a home meet. 

“I thought the guys ran really well,” said Aalbers. “At home you would hope you can run your best but it was a cold and windy night and sometimes that can dampen performances. Despite that we had some really good performances and a lot of season bests again.” 

The Bulldogs girls team would finish in the tip five in five different individual events. Charlee Morton finished first in the shot put throw with a throw of 44 feet, 10.5 inches, and she also finished first in the discus throw with a throw of 157 feet, 3 inches. MacKenzie Valley finished second in the 3000-meter run with a time of 11 minutes, 45.53 seconds. Lily Hambly finished fifth in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1 minute, 11.54 seconds, and she also finished fifth in the high jump with a jump of four feet, 6 inches.

The girls best finish in a team event was finishing 12th place in the 800-medley relay. That team was made up of Drew Horton, Adelee Gronewold, Noel Hansen and Megan Severs and they finished with a time of two minutes, 13.54 seconds.

Both the boys and girls teams competed in their last regular season meet on Monday at Garner-Hayfield-Ventura before their respective district qualifying meet on Thursday. The boys district qualifying meet will be on Thursday, May 8 at Clear Lake at 4:30 p.m. with the girls district qualifying meet will be at Iowa Falls-Alden at the same time. Head coach of the Bulldogs girls team, Nikki Doneneworth, talked about what she expects from her team as the season begins to wind down. 

“We just hope that people are healthy and injury free as we get into the district qualifying meet and the state qualifying meet,” said Donnenworth. “We are going in with 12 available to compete so we’re in the best shape we have been in all season.”