SEC warm up for districts

The Washington boys and girls track teams finished second and third, respectively, at the Southeast Conference meet Thursday in Fairfield.

This Thursday is the state-qualifying meet at Mt. Pleasant.

The Demon girls had season bests in the sprint medley relay, the 4x8 relay, Olivia Marek in the 100 hurdles and Ashley Teleen and Elyse Hunt in the 400 hurdles.

The boys had season bests in the sprint medley, the 4x1 and Cael Adam in the discus.

'It was a great night,” girls coach Stefanie Haworth said. 'We finally got everyone back and loaded up on three relays and got the conference title in those races. Our 4x1 won by 1.4 seconds and tied our season best time we ran at Drake. Our 4x2 dropped over 2 seconds off our season best. The first three legs, we were pretty close with Mt. Pleasant and when Jenah Greiner got the baton, she flew, helping our 4x2 win by 2 seconds. Our 4x4 was one we have changed many bodies on all season and we knew it was going to be a close race as we hadn't beat Mt. Pleasant yet this season. Three of our girls come straight off the 4x1 into the 4x4, so there isn't a lot of recovery time. Leah Marek did a great job of getting us in the lead when she handed off, Jenah Greiner had a great split and opened the lead up even more. Ashley rolled her ankle right before the race, so she had to overcome a little and still ran well. When she handed off to Kelsey Pacha we had about a 1-second lead but Mt. Pleasant was closing fast. After 150 meters, Mt.Pleasant tried to make a move and pass Kelsey on the back stretch, but Kelsey wasn't having it, and dug deep to fight off the pass. She continued to run hard and keep the lead for us to win by 1.5 seconds and run a season best by 5 seconds. All of girls on all of the relays had great nights and great splits, it was fun to see them having the success we knew they could have especially after a long season of injuries.”

'It was a bittersweet night for us because of some adversity, sickness and injury,” boys coach Steve Roth said. ' We had to change some stuff around. I liked how everyone stepped up and filled in. We ran over 40 kids. We experimented in the distance medley. I'm proud of the shuttle hurdle. The sprint medley had good handoffs. We had seven second-place finishes and three of them were beat right at the line. Lincoln Kleese did great and so did Cade Hennigan. Adam is really on a roll and Kasen Bailey in the high jump is awesome for a freshman.

'Conference is all about what place you are in but districts are about times, in a way. If we finish first or second at district, we are going to state.”

The state meet is May 16-18 at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.