Records fall at Charles City-hosted NEIC Track Meet

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — In an outdoor track season wrecked by a succession of spring blizzards and biblical downpours, Monday’s rescheduled Northeast Iowa Conference boys and girls track meets were held arguably during the best day and night of the year weather condition-wise.

It was in such a setting where several long-standing conference records were broken, and a bevy of Division 1-bound athletes closed out their outstanding careers ahead of state-qualifying meets held later this week.

Decorah won both the male and female meets with respective team scores of 189 and 150 points.

The Viking boys were led in part by future Northern Iowa athlete Andrew Kephart, who won both the 1600- and 3200-meter runs with respective times of 4:43.41 and 10:39.62.

The Viking girls got a lift from senior standout Katie Nimrod, who set a meet record in the 400 (58.89) after winning the 800 (2:19.08) as she finished her career with 10 NEIC titles.

Crestwood’s Ellie Friesen, who recently became the first NEIC girl athlete to win both the 1500 and 3000 at the Drake Relays, to no surprise won the same races on Monday.

Her time in the 1500 (4:38.46) broke a meet record by more than 2 seconds.

Behind runner-up Crestwood (114 team points) and third-place finisher New Hampton (100), the Charles City girls placed fourth (85).

The Comet shuttle hurdle relay team of Lynn Hoeft, Tayler Schmidt, Alex Litterer and Sadie Ruzicka edged runner-up Decorah with a first-place time of 1:08.01.

Later, Ruzicka, Schmidt, Sami Heyer and Kiki Connell placed second in the 4-by-200 relay.

In the 100-meter hurdles, Ruzicka — who will be vying for her fourth State Track Championships berth later this week — was nipped at the line by Oelwein’s Drew Becker, whose winning time of 16.62 was only .03 better than Ruzicka’s.

The Comets placed two throwers in the top 4 in the discus with senior Sydney Loeckle placing second (111 feet, 11 inches) and freshman Carly Stevenson placing fourth (104 feet, 11 inches).

Sarah Goodman of Crestwood won the discus with a throw of 125 feet, 9 inches.

While resting state-qualifying hopeful Gavin Connell and not entering its top 1600 distance medley relay team that also has a chance at getting to Des Moines, Charles City boys placed sixth (42) behind Decorah, New Hampton (134), Waverly-Shell Rock (113), Oelwein (66) and Waukon (57).

Comet junior Ryan Zuspan attained a person-best flight of 19 feet, 8 3/4 inches to place third in the long jump.

Charles City senior Hakim Sharief, who was deprived of most of his final basketball season due to a knee injury, has managed to recover enough to record a third-place time of 24.43 seconds in the 200-meter dash.

Sharief was also part of Charles City’s 800 sprint relay team that included John Sibuma, Marcus Cranshaw and Mason Deeter, which set a Comet school record with a second-place time of 1:40.11, which was bested by NEIC sprint champs New Hampton (Braydon Fisher, Shane Burke, Josh Fenske, Keagan John — 1:38.42).

The Comet boys 4-by-110 shuttle hurdle relay team of Sibuma, Elliott Sinnwell, Jeremiah Chapman and Dylan Koresh placed third with a time of 1:03.47.

Both Charles City’s boys and girls track teams will compete in the Class 3A state qualifier, Thursday at Decorah High School.