Mt. Pleasant girls' track and field team prepares for final indoor meet

The Panther girls? track and field team is preparing for their final meet of the indoor season after coming home from the Central College Indoor meet at Pella on Saturday afternoon with a number of top-10 finishes.

?Everyone had a chance to run multiple events, so this was the first chance for the coaching staff to get times on everyone,? Coach Dave Hutchcroft said. ?Once again the competition was tough with the top 4A teams there, but we improved our times in seven events and ran some very good split times for this early in the season.?

The top place winner was Leslie Taylor who finished second in the 55 hurdles in 8.69 seconds. Taylor had qualified with a sixth-place finish in prelims, but ran a clean race in the finals and finished second ? just ahead of teammate Kelsi Phipps, who was third in 8.70.

Phipps was the top qualifier in prelims with a time of 8.60, but clipped a hurdle in the finals and had to settle for third.

Hannah Becker completed the trifecta for the hurdlers by finishing sixth in the finals (8.94) after qualifying in eighth.

Many of the other Panther girls also finished in the top 10 of their events.

The A and B teams finished third and fourth, respectively, in both the 4x200-meter and 4x400-meter relays.

The 4x200 A team was made up of Taylor, Kelsey Smith, Kaitlin Jones and Taylor Shull, and they finished in one minute, 56.32 seconds.

The 4x200 B team of Hattie Liechty, Becker, Phipps and Grace Lutovsky finished in 1:57.00.

The 4x400 A team was made up of Jones, Chloe Haffarnan, Lutovsky and Taylor Shull, and they finished in 4:27.78.

The 4x400 B team of Liechty, Becker, Taryne Shull and Natalie Ita ran a 4:29.99.

Phipps had the best 200 split (28.4), and the fastest 400 split was by Becker (1:03.40).

?The Panthers showed they have a lot more depth this year than in the past,? Hutchcroft said, noting the competitve finishes of both the A and B teams in the relays.

In high jump, Becker and Lutovsky tied for fourth place with a jump of 4-8.

Hannah Weber took fourth place in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 5:41.20. Weber also took sixth in the 3,000 with a time of 12:13.75.

Another fourth-place finish came from the girls? 4x800 team of Natalie Myers, Taryne Shull, Ita and Haffarnan. The Panthers finished the relay in 10:22.25.

In the long jump, Leslie Taylor took sixth place with a jump of 15-3, and Taylor Shull took eighth place with a 14-10.

Hutchcroft will bring 12 or 13 of the team members to Cedar Falls on Tuesday to compete in the State Indoor at the UNI Dome.

This is the last year that the IGHSAU intends to sponsor the State Indoor, which used to be the Dickinson Relays.

For information on the boys? track and field team?s finish at the Central College Indoor on Saturday and the Dickinson Relays tonight, see tomorrow?s edition of the Mt. Pleasant News.