The Norwalk track teams combined to earn 12 automatic state qualifier bids Thursday night while hosting a rainy Class 4A Coed State Qualifying Meet at Warrior Stadium. The Norwalk boys soccer team also fared well in the rain, winning 3-0 at Waukee.
Track Results
Johnston swept the team titles in Norwalk as the Dragon boys scored 185 points and the girls tallied 165. The Norwalk boys placed third out of eight teams with 129 points and the girls placed fourth with 100.5.
The top two place-winners in each event qualified automatically for next week’s State Track & Field Championships in Des Moines. The Warrior boys racked up seven automatic state bids and the Warrior girls had five. Both teams expect to add several more entries to that list when the at-large state qualifiers are officially announced today.
One of Norwalk’s biggest winners Thursday was senior sprinter Claire Farrell, who took gold in three individual events with season-best times of 12.12 seconds in the 100-meter dash, 24.79 in the 200 and 56.96 in the 400. Farrell, who has battled a nagging injury for much of the spring, ran all three of her signature events in the same meet for the first time this year.
The Norwalk girls also placed first in the shuttle hurdle relay and set a school record in the process. The quartet of Kate Desmond, Ella Johnson, Chloe Martin and Shae Ung clocked a time of 1:05.93. Desmond later qualified for state in the 100-meter hurdles, placing second.
The Warrior boys had just one first-place performance as senior Maddux Borcherding-Johnson won the shot put with a toss of 53 feet, six inches. They placed second in six events, including three with school-record times.
The sprint medley relay team of Dillon Ranck, Landon Hochstein, Jacey Hutson and Ben Hanson lowered the school record to 1:33.43 and the shuttle team of Daniel Webster, Daniel Roche, Isaac Sutcliffe and Braeden Carlson combined for a record time of 1:00.23. Hutson also broke his own 400-meter dash record in 49.54 seconds.
Additional state qualifiers placing second were Carlson in the 400 hurdles (PR of 55.06) as well as the distance medley and 4×400 relays. The 4×400 crew of Hutson, Ranck, Carlson and Hanson ran a season-best of 3:25.54.
Soccer Recap
The Norwalk boys soccer team improved their record to 8-7 overall with a 3-0 win at Waukee, scoring all three goals in the first half. Juniors Grant Fletcher, Drake Stageman and Jace Davis all scored a goal for the Class 3A ninth-ranked Warriors. Senior Jack Brown had the lone assist and senior goalie Jacob Rueber had five saves. Norwalk wraps up Little Hawkeye Conference play Saturday morning with a make-up game at Pella.