Warhawk Girls Finish Fourth, Boys Finish Seventh in Meet at Hampton

The West Fork boys and girls track and field teams both competed in the Jim Basye Coed Relays at Hampton-Dumont-CAL on Friday, May 2. The girls finished fourth out of 14 teams with a total of 71 points while the boys finished seventh out of 10 teams with a total of 69 points. 

The Warhawks girls team finished in the top five in five different individual events. JoAnna Wallace finished first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.99 seconds, which set a West Fork school record. Keara Wood finished in a tie for first in the high jump, with a jump of 5 feet, 2 inches. Evelyn Hitzhusen finished second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1 minute, 1.34 seconds. Abby Schoning finished fourth in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 17.86 seconds. Brylee Dickman finished fifth in the shot put throw, with a throw of 36 feet, 4.5 inches. 

The girls also finished in the top five in four team events. Preslee Dickman, Alyssa Wood, JoAnna Wallace and Evie Hitzhusen made up the 800-medley relay team that finished third with a time of 1 minute, 54.95 seconds, which set another West Fork school record.  Wallace, along with Keara Wood, Alyssa Wood and Karma McMorris made up the 4x200-meter relay team that finished fourth with a time of 1 minute, 53.49 seconds. McMorris along with Masey Mayland, Ellie Harms and Jenny Ramirez made up the 4x800-meter relay team that finished fifth with a time of 11 minutes, 34.69 seconds. The Warhawks shuttle hurdle relay team, made up of Keara Wood, Abby Schoning, Zada Huff and Mya Marzen, finished fifth with a time of 1 minute, 25.40 seconds. The head coach of the Warhawks girls team, Ashley Sears, spoke on how her team's depth leads to the consistent results this season and how they are preparing for the last few meets of the season. 

“We have a pretty talented group this year and having plenty of girls out makes it easy to fill a line-up and strategize who needs to go where in order to maximize points,” said Sears. “We tend to use these meets as conditioning this time of year with plenty of rest days which helps to maximize performance.”

The Warhawks boys team finished in the top five in five different individual events. Xavier Haller finished tied for first in the high jump with a jump of 6 feet, and he also finished fourth in the long jump with a jump of 18 feet, 8 inches. Jarren Hitzhusen finished in a tie for fifth in the shot put throw, with a throw 40 feet, 9 inches. Brett Behr finished fifth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.80 seconds. Jasper Jones finished fifth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 57.06 seconds. 

The boys also finished inside the top five in three different team events. Blaine Shulz, Zander Hansen, Brett Behr and Rykan Dorenkamp made up the 800-medley relay team that finished second, with a time of 1 minute, 39.58 seconds. Those same four boys also made up the 4x100-meter team that finished fourth with a time of 46.08 seconds. Dorenkamp, Behr, Dax Untken and Xavier Haller made up the Warhawks 4x200-meter relay team that finished third with a time of 1 minute, 36.21 seconds. The head coach of the Warhakes boys team, Caleb Hovenga, discussed how he felt his team has performed to this point in the season. 

“Some good stuff this year has been showing up,” said Hovenga. “My favorite thing to see that we,ve done this year has been seeing some of these guys really step up in a pinch. There were a couple injuries, a couple of the things going on that just prevented a few people from being able to compete. So we’ve had a few people kind of step up and bite off a little more than maybe they can chew.”

Both the boys and girls teams competed in their last regular season meet on Monday at West Hancock before their respective district qualifying meet on Thursday. The boys and girls district qualifying meet will be on Thursday, May 8 at North Butler at 4:00 p.m.