A Recap of the 2013 Iowa State High School Track & Field Meet

Click this image to see more than 100 photos of DMPS student-athletes at teh 2013 Iowa State High School Track & Field Meet.

On Thursday morning Roosevelt sophomore Megan Schott gutted out a 7th place finish in the Class 4A Girls’ 3,000 Meter Run, recording a personal best time in the event and notching the Riders’ first two points of the state coed track and field meet. With her long, wavy blonde mane tied back she galloped eight times around the hallowed track at Drake Stadium like a palomino before slipping out of her bright yellow shoes as soon as she crossed the finish line and drawing herself a cup of cold water from a large thermos stationed nearby.

The race was on.

Late Saturday afternoon, in the waning stages of the extravaganza billed as the nation’s largest high school track and field competition, Roosevelt’s 4×100 relay team placed 7th to earn the final two of the school’s 62 total points, good for an overall finish of 4thin the team standings, just one point out of third.

Here’s a collage of impressions that were registered in between that long opening run and the last, frenzied sprint:

  • The routines of the high and long jumpers as the psyche themselves prior to their leaps are like stationary interpretive dances.
  • The difficulty of concentrating on the high jump bar as a pack of gazelles rounds the curve behind the jump pit, urged on by the crowd.
  • The bar fluttering while the jumper who brushed it watched anxiously from the pit, as though it would explode if it toppled.
  • Injured sprinters crumpled on the track in pain and disqualified false starters are disappointment personified.
  • Runners accepting the shell casing from the starter’s gun as a memento of a championship run.
  • Coiled racers crouched in starting blocks and spent ones sprawled at the finish line.
  • Stumbled but unsinkable hurdlers getting back up and pushing on.
  • The famed blue oval as clogged with traffic as a freeway at rush hour.
  • Relay runners lunging forward to pass a baton like recharging a battery before their power ran out.
  • The pursuit of unseen ghosts and legends from the past besides chasing whoever’s right in front of you.
  • The sheer dignity and honor of also-rans.
  • The realization that the record book is endless; as infinite as pi.
  • Volunteers prepping the track for hurdles races like stagehands rearranging props between scenes of a theatrical drama.
  • Champs talking into mics and cameras after a race while challengers hunched over trash barrels just out of frame.
  • Bell laps signaling exhausted but well-paced racers that it was time to push all their chips into the pot and kick.
  • On a hot afternoon ice dumped from a cooler on the infield looks like a pile of diamonds.
  • Seconds have to be split like hairs to distinguish winners from runners-up.
  • Track and field is officially classified as a spring sport, but this year it began in winter and ended in summer.
  • Finally, when all is said and done, it strikes you that every year all these events roll into one truly great, timeless time chopped into hundredths of seconds. Spirits soar higher than all the bars and hurdles and smiles open as wide as the entire state of Iowa. The cheers and disappointments fade but the medals and memories will never tarnish.

Listed below are all of the DMPS place-winners who tallied points in the team standings for their schools:

ROOSEVELT

  • Malik Denny (freshman) – 8th place; 4A Boys’ High Jump
  • Megan Schott (sophomore) – 7th place; 4A Girls’ 3,000 Meters
  • Tyanna Whitaker (freshman), Briyana Carter (freshman), Teanna Lewis (sophomore), Jalynn Roberts-Lewis (junior) – 7th place; 4A Girls’ 4×100 Relay
  • Larenz Abston (senior) – 6th place; 4A Boys’ Shot Put
  • Makenna Schnack (junior), Jaelyn Johnson (freshman), Teanna Lewis (sophomore), Jalynn Roberts-Lewis (junior) – 3rd place; 4A Girls’ 4×200 Relay
  • Jalynn Roberts-Lewis (junior) – 3rd place; 4A Girls’ 200 Meters
  • Jalynn Roberts-Lewis (junior) – 2nd place; 4A Girls’ 100 Meters
  • Alexa Hunt (senior) – 1st place (defending champion); 4A Girls’ Shot Put
  • Agnes Sayeh (senior) – 1st place; 4A Girls’ 100 Meters & 2nd place; 4A Girls’ 200 Meters
  • Agnes Sayeh (senior) – 2nd place; 4A Girls’ 200 Meters
  • Sydne Davis (junior) – 1st place; 4A Boys’ 400 Meter Hurdles & 2nd place; 4A Boys’ 110 Meter Hurdles
  • Sydne Davis (junior) – 2nd place; 4A Boys’ 110 Meter Hurdles
  • Tyanna Whitaker (freshman), Briyana Carter (freshman), Teanna Lewis (sophomore), Agnes Sayeh (senior) – 1st place; 4A Girls’ Sprint Medley Relay (state meet record time = 1:45.66)

LINCOLN

  • Elijah Young (junior) – 5th place; 4A Boys’ 110 Meter Hurdles
  • Jordan Cheatem (senior), Jordan Bryson (junior), Mason Downing (sophomore), Vybert Greene (senior) – 5th place; 4A Boys’ 4×200 Relay & 4th place; 4A Boys’ 4×100 Relay
  • Jordan Cheatem (senior), Jordan Bryson (junior), Mason Downing (sophomore), Vybert Greene (senior) – 4th place; 4A Boys’ 4×100 Relay

EAST

  • Terrence Karla (senior) – 8th place; 4A Boys’ 400 Meters
  • Austin Lee (sophomore) – 4th place; Boys’ Wheelchair 400 Meters, 5th place Boys’ Wheelchair 200 Meters & 7th place; Boys’ Wheelchair 100 Meters
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