Griswold repeats as WIC track champs

 GRISWOLD — The Griswold girls’ track team claimed a second straight Western Iowa Conference team championship at last Tuesday’s conference meet at Griswold High School.

Griswold held off Treynor to win with a score of 130 points. The Cardinals were second with 116, while Missouri Valley took third.

The Tigers scored four wins at the meet, with two coming courtesy of Rebekah Topham.

Topham won the titles in both the 3,000 and 1,500. In both instances, teammate Alyx Flippin was second.

Topham won the 3,000 with a time of 11:11.55, while Flippin ran 11:18.64. In the 1,500, Topham ran 4:55.18, while Flippin ran 5:05.75.

Topham also had a runner-up finish in the 400-meter hurdles when she ran 1:10.36, less than two seconds behind the winner of the race, Kylan Straight of Logan-Magnolia.

Jackie Rush had the other individual win when she took the title in the discus. 

Rush threw 113’3”, easily finishing ahead of runner-up Kaitlin Diggins of Logan-Magnolia.

Meanwhile, the shuttle hurdle team of Jeana Freund, Melodie Anstey, Jessica Marshall and Mandi Backhaus won the title as they ran 1:12.00, winning by four-hundredths of a second over Logan-Magnolia.

The distance medley team took second, while the 4x800 team finished third, for Griswold.

In the boys’ meet, Griswold finished seventh with a score of 53. IKM-Manning finished first with 114, while Missouri Valley took second.

Derek Kirchhoff and Aaron Metheny both had the highlights with second place finishes in their respective events.

Kirchhoff took second (11.97) in the 100-meter dash when he was three-hundredths of a second behind Sage Lloyd of Missouri Valley.

Metheny meanwhile took second in the long jump when he jumped 20’7”. Jadon Jahnke was fourth with 19’2.75”.

Griswold had third-place finishes in the distance medley (3:47.96) and the 4x100 (45.95).

Both Griswold teams will be in action Thursday when they compete at the state qualifying meet at Mount Ayr.