Mid-Prairie’s Hostetler, 2nd, Highland’s Yahnke 11th

DES MOINES - Time will tell where Ashlyn Keeney will rank among the state's all-time greats in girls' distance running.

But her resume has a big bullet point already.

A freshman at Iowa City Liberty, Keeney blazed through the final two laps in 73.1 and 69.2 seconds, and won the girls' 3,000-meter run at the Drake Relays on Thursday at Drake Stadium.

Her time of 9 minutes, 39.64 seconds ranks No. 4 all-time in Iowa. But there's more.

It's No. 1 among freshmen in Iowa, eighth-best among freshmen in the United States.

Ever.

'I'm so grateful for this gift,” Keeney said. 'So thankful. My goal was to run 9:45.”

Her goal might need some adjusting.

Typically a hard charger out of the gate, Keeney ran a controlled pace through the early stages of the race. She didn't take the lead until the sixth lap. Once she took it, she kept it.

'I've been told I run scared at the start,” she said. 'My coaches told me I should try not doing that, and I'm glad they did.

'With about 600 (meters) to go, I just thought, ‘OK, I've got this, I'm going to finish strong.”

Mid-Prairie's Marie Hostetler was Keeney's main challenger for the first 2,200 meters and finished second in 9:55.26.

'It could have been better,” Hostetler said. 'I wanted to pick it up with two or three laps left. I thought I'd be able to pick it up. But that's exactly what Ashlyn did.”

Highland's Emily Yahnke got better with each of her long jumps, but did not make the finals and finished with the 11th best distance out of the 25 qualifiers.

Yahnke leaped 15 feet, 6.5 inches on her first attempt.

That was just a warm-up as she soared to 16-9 on her second attempt. She bettered that with 16-10 on her third jump.

The top nine distances made the finals and the ninth best was 16-11.5 by Aliyah Carter of Dubuque Wahlert, who ended by third at 17-10, the best of her three additional leaps.

Darby Thomas of Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln won the event at 19 feet even.