The Southeast Valley Boys’ Track & Field headed to Des Moines for the three-day Iowa State Track & Field meet held at the Blue Oval at Drake University. This year, the Jaguars had nine different athletes competing in eight different events in the class 2A division.

               On Thursday, May 22nd the Jaguars competed in three different events. The first event of the day was Kayden Showers in the 200m dash. Kayden’s time of 22.57 was his second fastest of the year and good enough for 16th place overall in the prelims. Next up on the track was freshman Keelan Wellman in the open 400m dash. Keelan’s time of 55.52 which was 23rd overall.

               The final event of the day was the shuttle hurdle relay team of Alex Burger, Casey Hanson, Kolton Ollinger and Colin Johnson. The quartet improved their school record set earlier in the year with a time of 1:02.58. The time was fast enough for 14th place overall.

               Friday, the Jaguars first event of the day was the 4 x 200m relay team. Colin Johnson, Logan Jaeschke, Bryce Harrison and Kayden Showers finished in 16th place overall. The Jaguars ran a time of 1:31.22 which was this team’s second fastest time of the year. 

Next up saw to Jaguars competing in the 400m low hurdles. In the first heat, Colin Johnson ran a 57.83 to finish 21st overall. Alex Burger was able to win the second heat and then had to watch the third (fast) heat to see if his school record time of 55.24 was fast enough to earn state medalist honors. After about a 5 minutes wait, the sophomore learned he claimed 7th place overall and was named a state place winner. 

In the final race of Friday, the 4 x 100m quartet of Dreyvon Steadman, Logan Jaeschke, Bryce Harrison and Kayden Showers to the track. The four Jaguars got the baton around the track in 43.77 seconds. Their second fastest time of the year was good enough for 14th place in 2A.

Saturday morning saw the Jaguars returning for one final event in the sprint medley relay. Dreyvon, Logan and Kayden joined Alex Burger in a situation that found Alex in the same spot the day before. The Jaguars were also in heat 2, lane 5 and Burger was able to work his way to the front of the pack coming down the backstretch to once again win the heat and put the Jaguars in 3rd place after the first two heats. At the conclusion of the fast heat, it looks like the Jaguars would be 9th, but due to a DQ by one of the teams, the Jaguar quartet found themselves as state place winners; finishing 8th overall and setting the 3rd school record of the weekend in a time of 1:35.40.

The Jaguars ended up with three team points which put them 41st overall in the class 2A team standings. “We had a really good weekend at state. It’s an exhausting three days to be at state and sometimes hard to stay focused, but the boys did a great job going down and accomplishing our goals. The times were unbelievably fast this weekend, so to walk away with two state place winners and three new school records as well as a great experience for these nine athletes, we are extremely happy with how the weekend went,” commented Coach Nuss

Coach Nuss continues, “I have to congratulate all of our athletes for contributing to our successful season. To have Dreyvon win a state medal in his final race is special for any senior and I need to thank Dreyvon and our other three seniors Steven Fisher, Grant Farnham and Caden Kaltschnee for all of their hard work the last few years. We will miss their leadership and work ethic next year. However, with the lost of only 4 seniors, the return of 28 of this year’s athletes, plus some incoming freshmen that had a very successful junior high season, we are extremely excited to build on this year’s success next year.”