The Ballard women's track meet competed in the Raccoon River Conference Meet hosted by Carlisle on Wednesday evening.

The running events began with Ava Vance taking 5th place and Kya Hermann placing 8th in the 3000 meters, earning valuable points for the team. Kya demonstrated remarkable improvement, achieving a career PR with a time of 12:04, 41 seconds faster than her initial 3000 of the season.

In the 1500 meters, Annika Larson set a season PR of 5:01, shaving off another 8 seconds from her best time this season, securing a 3rd place finish. Ava Vance, despite her second race of the night, gave a strong performance and placed 8th.

Nora Loveland continued to excel, placing 5th in the long jump, 7th in the 100 hurdles, and anchoring the shuttle to an 8th place finish with a split of 16.63. Ava Richardson achieved her season PR in the 800 meters, finishing 5th, and teamed up with Raya Miller, Brynn Wilson, and Brenna Baumgardner in the 4x800 relay, securing 7th place with a season PR of 10:20, shaving 7 seconds off their previous best. Brenna Baumgardner narrowly missed placing in the 800 but still achieved a season PR of 2:38!

The 4x100 meter relay team consisting of Gardner, Lande, Loewe, and Grundmeyer performed well, securing 8th place and achieving a season PR.

The Bombers will be back in action on Thursday, May 9, as they participate in the State Qualifying Meet at North Polk. The meet is scheduled to commence at 4:00 PM.

Comments From Women's Head Coach Scott Barth:

"It was a typical RRC meet last night as the conference once again showed that it is one of the premier 3A conferences in the state. ADM and Gilbert showed that they will be in contention for a podium finish at the state meet in a few weeks and other teams showed many events that will be earning medals as well. The depth of this conference is phenomenal.

With that being said, we competed hard last night. Although that did not show up in the point total and team finish, we did have 9 individual season or Career PRs last night as well as 4 relay season PRs. Like I said above, this conference and we just didn't have the depth to compete. I told many of our girls that the RRC meet will undoubtedly be harder than our SQM, and that we needed to go out, compete hard and see what happens. So, in spite of the team finish, I am happy with the way the girls competed and there are positive signs for qualifying multiple events for the state meet at SQM.

We started the running events with Ava Vance taking 5th and Kya Hermann 8th in the 3000 meters to earn double points for the bombers. Ava was performing somewhat under the weather but powered through and ran pretty well. Kya continued to show rapid improvement in setting a career PR with a time of 12:04 which is now a total of 41 seconds faster than her first 3000 of the season.

We also doubled up points in the 1500 meters as Annika LArson ran a season PR of 5:01 which knocked another 8 seconds off of her season best time. That was good enough for a 3rd place finish. Ava Vance powered through her second race of the night placing 8th. 

Nora Loveland continued to perform well. She placed 5th in the long jump, 7th in the 100 hurdles and anchored the shuttle to a 8th place finish with a split of 16.63. Ava Richardson ran her season PR in the 800 meters finishing 5th and ran with Raya Miller, Brynn Wilson and Brenna Baumgardner on the 4x800 which placed 7th with a season PR of 10:20. They cut 7 seconds off of their previous season PR. Brenna Baumgardner finished just out of placid in the 800 but managed to run a season PR of 2:38 as well!

The 4x100 meter relay team of Gardner, Lande, Loewe and Grundmeyer ran well taking 8th, a season PR as well.

The biggest disappointment of the night was missing a handoff at the beginning of the distance medley which caused our runner to step out of our lane. The team of Loveland, Lande, Tollefson and Larson was on pace to set a season PR until the red flag was raised. Get that handoff fixed and this relay holds promise at SQM.

So, all in all I think that we performed pretty well with our 13 season prs and are progressing heading into the SQM meet at North Polk next week. We will focus on that momentum and see where the chips fall one week from today."

TEAM SCORES

1. ADM, 176

2. Gilbert, 116

3. North Polk, 98

4. Bondurant-Farrar, 75

5. Carroll, 72

6. Winterset, 70

7. Carlisle, 57

8. Boone, 47

9. Ballard, 29

Photo Credit: Davidson Photography