Kee girls track team dominates its own home invitational, finishes fifth at Crestwood


Kee girls track senior Sydney Strong blasts out of the starting blocks during one of her relay races at the Hawks’ home invitational meet Thursday, April 20. Strong was in on three of the four Kee relay event victories at the meet, teaming up with the junior trio of Kendra Cooper, Ashley Schwartzhoff and Nicki Wood for a win in the sprint medley relay in 2:05.01, doing likewise with Schwartzhoff, Kendra Cooper and sophomore Katie Brennan in the distance medley for a winning time of 4:51.49, and also joining forces with Wood, Schwartzhoff and junior Chloe Severson for victory in the 4x200 relay with a time of 2:04.52. Photo courtesy of the Kee High School Yearbook.

Kendra Cooper makes more history with first-ever Drake Relays qualification in the discus, Chloe Severson just misses Drake Relays but shatters her own school record in the shot put

The Kee girls track team continued one of its strongest seasons in the existence of the program with another solid week of competition that added more entries to the team’s history book. The Lady Hawks posted a fifth-place finish in the larger, 10-team field at the Crestwood Invitational Tuesday, April 18, where junior Chloe Severson unleashed another school record shot put effort. The Kee girls then dominated their own home invitational meet Thursday, April 20, winning 12 of 19 events to claim the meet’s team championship as well.

Even more program history is believed to have been made this past week, as junior Kendra Cooper ended up qualifying for the Drake Relays in the discus, a feat believed to be the first-ever such qualification for a Kee track and field female. Details of her participation in that prestigious event later this week appear elsewhere in a shaded box on this same Sports page. Severson was just a few inches shy of joining her classmate at that Drake Relays mid-season spectacular, as her new school shot put record remained a bit shy of the 39’1” final qualifying mark for the annual event.

The Lady Hawks were next scheduled to compete at Clayton Ridge Tuesday, April 25 before traveling to MFL/MarMac Thursday, April 27. Kee’s lady tracksters will then end up competing on the Edgewood-Colesburg track for three consecutive events, going there for one final invitational meet Monday, May 1 before competing in the Upper Iowa Conference Meet at Edgewood-Colesburg Thursday, May 4. One final chance to extend this season will take place Thursday, May 11 at the Hawks’ Class 1A State Qualifying Meet, also to be held at Edgewood-Colesburg High School and details of which can be found in a shaded box elsewhere on the Sports pages in the print edition and e-edition.

Crestwood Invitational ...
The Kee track girls finished in the middle of the 10-team pack at the Crestwood Invitational Tuesday, April 18, competing against a combination of larger and smaller schools. The Lady Hawks tallied a pair each of first- and second-place finishes to help compile 70 team points and finish fifth within that 10-team field, setting yet another school record in the process.

Kee Invitational ...
The track Lady Hawks dominated their own home meet Thursday, April 20, winning 12 of the meet’s 19 events and finishing second in four others to claim the team title with nearly twice as many points as their nearest competitor. The Kee tracksters included a sweep of all four field events on that road to team victory, actually sweeping the top two spots in three of those four events to rack up 111 team points for the invitational championship.

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