Kee girls track team ties for 10th place at Class 1A State Meet
Trio of top-four finishes in four medals ... Kee girls track junior Haley Meyer battles a tight pack of runners in the rain-soaked Class 1A 1500 meter run on the way to a third-place finish in her final of four races at the State Track Meet held at Drake Stadium in Des Moines Thursday-Saturday, May 20-22. Meyer brought home four medals from this year’s season grand finale, placing third in both this 1500 meter run, in 5:01.90, and the 3000 meter run, in 10:39.44, finishing fourth in the 800 meter run in 2:21.83, and anchoring Kee’s distance medley relay to a sixth-place medal in a time of 4:18.57. All three of her individual placewinnings came in new school record times. Photo courtesy of Nate Troy, Cresco Times Plain Dealer.
Haley Meyer finishes in top four of all three distance races, D-Medley also medals
Returning to the big blue oval of Drake Stadium in Des Moines for the first time since making history with a share of the program’s first-ever Class 1A State Championship in 2019 - the last time the Iowa High School State Track and Field Meet was held due to last spring’s COVID-19 cancellation, the Kee girls track team competed in that season grand finale again Thursday-Saturday, May 20-22. With about half of those championship team members returning from that history-making feat being joined by a trio of sophomore newcomers this spring, the Lady Hawks brought home four medals from their seven events qualified, scoring 20 team points to finish tied with Lisbon for 10th place in the final Class 1A team standings.
Kee junior distance running specialist Haley Meyer helped account for a majority of those 20 Hawk points, as she brought home four medals from this year’s season grand finale, finishing third in both the 3000 meters and 1500 meters, fourth in the 800 meter run and joining sophomores Alaina Bakewell and Jaylyn Walleser and senior Jada Mitchell (in her last-ever State Track Meet) to finish sixth in the distance medley.
All three of Meyer’s individual medals came in new school record times, including rewriting the 800 and 3000 meter standards held by 2019 Kee graduate Katie Brennan and her own 1500 meter mark. Those medals also all came behind the one-two sweep of those events by the senior pair of champion Peyton Pogge of Tri-Center/Neola - who Meyer topped for the Class 1A State Cross Country individual title this past fall - and Addison Parrott of Danville/New London - who was Class 2A’s State Cross Country individual runner-up this past fall.
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