Southeast Valley High School

Boys Track

Jag Boys Win State Qualifying Meet Title

The Southeast Valley boys’ looked to finish their strong season with a successful night at the class 2A state qualifying meet (sqm) in Holstein. After the Jaguars had to wait an extra night as weather postponed the meet until Friday, May 13th instead of Thursday, the SV boys’ season continued to roll as they won their first ever State Qualifying Meet title in the process of qualifying eight events to Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s state meet in Des Moines.

   The Jaguars victory involved five first place finishes, two second place finishes, five third place finishes, but it might have been the nine fifth through eighth place finishes that sealed the deal for the Jaguars on the way to scoring 116 team points. KPWC took 2nd with 97.50 points and conference foe Pocahontas Area was 3rd with 80 points.

   Seven of those qualifiers came by the automatic 1st and 2nd place qualifiers. Cooper Nuss ran a pair of season bests to claim titles in the distance double winning both the 3200m run and 1600m run in times of 10:28.39 and 4:42.16 respectively. Cooper qualified in both events as a sophomore as well. Kaleb Scott continued his winning ways in the high jump with a jump of 6’ 4” and will return to state as the defending runner-up in the event. Tre Fisher will also return to state as an individual qualifier, but this year it will be in the 200m dash as he ran a career best of 23.44 to win the 200m dash.

   Making first time appearances at the state meet will be Aaron Graves and Ethan Ackerson in the shot put. Aaron claimed the gold medal with a throw of 49’ 5.5” and Ethan was the runner-up with a throw of 47’ 6.5”. In the 4 x 200m relay after Jace Hanson replaced Kaleb Scott, Tre Fisher ran down OABCIG to claim 2nd place by .01 of a second to claim 2nd place. Along with Hanson and Fisher, Carl Berglund and Kolson Kruse helped the quartet punch their ticket to state.

   The Jaguars also had five 3rd place finishes on the night which had chances to receive one of eight at-large qualifiers to the state meet. Oscar Hanson’s 10:43.36 in the 3200m run was fast enough to qualify him for the state meet on Thursday. Oscar also finished 3rd in the 1600m run, but his season PR of 4:50.83 missed the cut-off by 3 seconds. Oscar was a state qualifier in the 1600m run a year ago.

   Kolson Kruse was a part of the other 3rd place finishes. In the long jump, Kolson lost a tie-breaker by ¼” and in the 200m dash ran his second fastest time of the season of 23.92. He was also part of the 4 x 100m relay team along with Berglund, Scott and Fisher that crossed the line in 45.33 to also win bronze.  

   The Jaguars got fifth place finishes from Justin Loseke in the discus (136’ 5”) who missed an at-large bid by 3 inches as well as the shuttle hurdle team who ran a season best of 1:07.80. The shuttle quartet was Michael Eslick, Jace Hanson, Caelan Oakes-Sudhish and Ty Klatt. Jace and Caelan picked up some big points in the 400m low hurdles, both running season bests of 1:00.48 and 1:01.65 respectively. Ty also took a season best in the 110m high hurdles (16.69) to claim two more team points in 7th place. Aaron Graves added a point by finishing 8th in the discus (132’ 5”).

   Several relays also placed on Friday. They were the 4 x 800m relay (9:24.05) of Carter Ferry, Asa Haub, Kyle Johnson and Zach Thompson who finished 7th. Zach and Asa joined Drew Corell and Andrew Miller in the distance medley relay and finished 8th (4:09.27). In the final event of the night Zach and Asa along with Jace and Cooper ran a season best in the 4 x 400m relay in a time of 3:50.80 to nab 8th place.  

   The Iowa State Track and Field meet will take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday May 19th - 21st at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. A schedule of Southeast Valley’s races will be found on the school website. The state coed meet features all four classes and is one of the largest state meets in the country.