L-S girls bring home hardware from state track and field meet

DES MOINES — Senior Carsyn McFarland has plenty of experience on the blue oval. Her first trip to the state track and field meet was on the 4x100 relay team with her older sister Reagan and Dylann Huyser.

Three years later in her final trip to the state meet, Carsyn McFarland joined Dylann’s younger sister Tatum, and the Hawk duo teamed up with senior Morgan Jones and sophomore Morgan Hay in the same event.

This time, the Hawks left Drake Stadium with their first state medal as Lynnville-Sully qualified for the finals on Friday and then finished fifth with a school-record time on Saturday.

“Tatum and I can now say we were better than our sisters,” Carsyn McFarland joked after the Hawks made the finals on Friday. “I ran with both of them my freshman year, too. It feels good to be able to make it in this event finally. We’ve been at this for four years. This team is great and really hard working.”

The 4x100 finish highlighted the Hawks’ weekend at the Iowa High School State Track and Field Championships. But Huyser also medaled in the 200-meter dash on Saturday.

Huyser had a busy weekend with four events as the 4x200 team placed 13th, the 4x800 relay was 16th and Huyser finished 12th in the high jump.

“We’ve improved so much as a team, but I didn’t expect to medal in two events,” sophomore Tatum Huyser said. “We knew we were really close in the 4x100 relay and if we pushed hard we could do it. We’ve been working on handoffs and getting everything to click. All of that hard work paid off.”

Last year’s 4x100 state relay also included McFarland, Hay, Jones and Huyser. That team was 23rd.

This year’s foursome qualified for the finals in seventh with a school-record time of 51.32 seconds. The Hawks bettered that in the finals and moved up to fifth after posting a season-best and school-record time of 50.82. Lisbon won the race in 50.06.

“It feels good to finally make it to finals. This team has been working hard for the past few years. It’s a really special team,” Jones said. “No matter what, we are walking out of here with a medal and I’m doing it with the best team.”

Huyser posted a career-best time of 26.38 in the prelims of the 200 and qualified for the finals in seventh. She was .01 seconds ahead of eighth and .03 in front of ninth.

In the finals, Huyser ran 27.29 and dropped to eighth. Panorama’s Jaidyn Sellers won the 200 title in 24.68. Sellers also won the 100 and 400.

Huyser competed in the high jump on Friday. She already fared better than last year when she cleared opening height.

She was one of seven jumpers to clear 5-0 but not 5-2. That put her in a tie for 12th, but she cut her leg wide open on her first attempt at 5-2.

HLV’s Ema Roberts won the title with a leap of 5-7. Mount Ayr’s Aubree Shields was the runner-up at 5-5 and Sellers finished third at 5-5.

“I was like 27th before districts so I didn’t think I would make state in the 200,” Huyser said. “I came into this hoping to stay as close to lane four as possible. That’s what everyone was telling me. I knew if I stayed close to her I had a good chance to make finals.

“High jump was OK. I did better than last year. I cut myself completely open on my first attempt at 5-2. I was worried I was going to keep cutting it so I didn’t push as much at the end.”

McFarland also opened the 4x200 relay and Huyser was on the anchor. Brilynn Tice and Jones joined the duo and the Hawks finished 13th in 1 minute, 49.35 seconds. Lisbon won the race in 1:46.93 and the final medal time was 1:48.82.

“We’re so close to a school record and finally got here in this event so you can’t ask for anything more than this,” Jones said. “I know we were .02 seconds off last year for the 4x200 and we had a senior in Greenlee Smock that we really wanted to make it with. But we used that disappointment from last year to push us this year and get better.”

Two other Lynnville-Sully relays placed 16th. That included the girls 4x800 relay and the boys 4x100 relay.

The Hawk boys ran a season-best time of 45.11 with Corder Noun Harder, Dawson James, Jaiden Richards and Jack Bowlin. They needed a 44.09 to make the finals. Lisbon won the race in 42.33.

The L-S girls who ran on the 4x800 relay were freshmen Emma Parkinson and Peyton Sharp, junior Olivia Norrish and sophomore Kate Harthoorn. They finished the race in 10:22.05.

Saint Ansgar won the race in 9:45.06 and Boyer Valley grabbed the final medal in 10:04.61.

“It’s so loud and so fun,” said Norrish, who last made it to state two seasons ago as a freshmen. “I didn’t expect to make it to state my first time. But this year, we knew this could be the goal for our group.

“We worked on handoffs in tight situations because both Kate and I had experiences where there was lot of congestion on the handoffs.”

Even as a sophomore, Hay said she was looking forward to the 4x100 relay at the state meet.

“I’m only a sophomore so this is a big step,” Hay said. “This is what I was looking forward to this year. I was here last year and it was amazing then, too, but now we are in the finals and broke the school record for a third time. That’s just amazing.”