Mt. Pleasant girls track posts season best times at IC West

Though the Mt. Pleasant girls' track team finished sixth in a field of eight teams loaded with 4A schools, the team finished the night with six season best times in events Tuesday evening at the Iowa City West relays.

"We try to find the best competition we can; running against the big schools makes us work harder and prepares us well for conference, district and state meets at the end of the season," said coach Dave Hutchcroft. "[The] goal was to lower times in some relays to put us in better position to try to qualify for Drake and we did just that."

Kaitlin Jones won the 400 meter hurdles with a time of 68.39 seconds, followed by Leslie Taylor's second place finish in the 100 meter hurdles in 16.68 seconds. The 4x200 relay team (Sierra Wyse, Grace Lutovsky, Kaitlin Jones, Taylor Shull) finished second in 1:50.78, along with the 4x800 relay (Wyse, Taryne Shull, Emma Ludwig, Chloe Haffarnan) in 10:25.19 and the shuttle hurdle relay (Rebekah Kimzey, Chelsey Stark, Leslie Taylor, Jones) in 1:8.95.

The 4x100 meter relay of Wyse, Jones, Leslie Taylor and Taylor Shull finished third with a time of 52.17 seconds.

Host Iowa City West won the meet with 160 points. Cedar Rapids Prairie edged Mt. Pleasant for fifth place by half of a point, 53-52.5.

Mt. Pleasant runs again on Thursday, April 7, at the Centerville Co-ed Relays, starting at 4 p.m.

Final team standings

1. Iowa City West 160; 2. Burlington 114; 3. Linn-Mar 69; 4. Muscatine 64; 5. Cedar Rapids Prairie 53; 6. Mt. Pleasant 52.5; 7. Cedar Rapids Xavier 43; 8. Cedar Rapids Kennedy 33