The Ballard women's track team qualified four events for the state track meet starting on Thursday.  The meet will be ran at Drake Stadium in Des Moines and will start on Thursday, May 16. 

To see the state qualifying track meet results, CLICK here.

To see the state track meet schedule, CLICK here.

WOMEN QUALIFIERS

Ellie Twedt - 3000 M Run (Final)

Thursday - May 16  9:55 AM

Rachel Newell - 100 M Dash (Preliminary)

Thursday - May 16  12:57 PM

Distance Medley Relay - Rachel Newell, Carley Wilson, Natalie Maher, Caitlin Maher, Josie Fleischmann (alternate) (Final)

Friday - May 17  9:20 AM

Caitlin Maher 1500 M Run (Final)

Saturday - May 18  3:00 PM

Comments From Head Coach Scott Barth:

"It was a beautiful night to run and the girls came ready.  We recorded two personal records and six other events had season bests times on the night overall.

Ellie Twedt opened the night with a personal record performance in the 3000 meter with a time of 11:05.  This qualified her for state.  She ran a smart race and hung tough with McMartin of Pella who entered the meet at with the number 1 seed.  There wasn't much of a spread until the final 300 meters.  She will shoot for another PR at the blue oval and hopefully get her time under the 11 minute mark.

Caitlin Maher followed Ellie's performance with a personal record performance of her own finishing running a 5:06 in the 1500 meters.  This qualified her for the state meet.  Caitlin went out and pushed the pace early and helped create a 3-pack of runners searching for the title.  She finished strong and she will be shooting for a sub 5 minute run at the state meet.

Rachel Newell secured her individual state qualification running a 13.36 in the 100 meter dash.  She started running the open event three weeks ago and that switch helped her get that spot.  She is quick out of the blocks and will aim to secure a sub 13 second time at state.

The distance medley team ran a season best performance by over four seconds qualifying for the state meet in a time of 4:25.  Rachel Newell quickly recovered from her 100 meter state qualifying performance running first leg.  Carley Wilson took the baton on the second leg to keep us in contention.  Natalie Maher ran a PR split time in the 400 with a 1:01.15 and twin sister Caitlin Maher made up ground in an anchor 800 meter leg with a time of 2:27 split.  It was a very good race up against great teams.  We know we have some time that can be cut on handoffs and having fresh athletes.  I look for us to cut another 2-3 seconds at the state meet.  Josie Fleischmann will serve as a high quality alternate on this relay if needed.  She has really developed for us and become a definite leader on this team.

We did have two heartbreaks on the night.  Our very young and talented 4x800 tesm of freshmen Brooke Loewe, Kate Huisinga and Mya Ehresman were joined by sophomore Josie Fleischmann and placed 3rd in a time of 10:12.  This time barely missed out on the state qualification cut time and was 3 seconds off their season best time they ran last week at the RRC meet.  I really thought we had a chance based on our performance, but it did come up a bit short.  However, they are a great team and very young.  They will come back next season and punch their tickets.  This is a sub 10 minute relay next season and they can make a run at the 4x800 meter school record.  Again, Josie is running very well right now running a 2:27 split on her leg.  The other three freshman have brought their times down all season.  All four have even better days ahead in the future.  The shuttle hurdle relay team of Taiylor Wright, Alexis Kluender, Ali Buban and Sarah Stolte Dq'd out of the event after Taiylor''s trail leg caught the #10 hurdle.  She got back up and Klunder took off out of the blocks a split second too early which brought the DQ.  We finished off the relay in a time of 1:11.  If we had run the relay smoothly and clean we would have been in contention for the hurdle championship with a sub 1:10 time.  They all ran well but that one hurdle got us tonight.

We look forward to representing the Ballard community next week at the state meet.  It should be three fun days of competition.  All in all, we are continuing on with: 1 senior, 1 junior and 4 sophomores.  Our team overall is very young with most of our points coming out of freshmen, sophomores and juniors.  The future is bright."