Woodward-Granger girls track places second in opener, Leighton makes a jump

It was a light week of work with some weather getting in the way for Woodward-Granger but the Hawks found a couple of highlights in those limited moments.

Girls Track

The Hawks started the outdoor season with a narrow second place finish Thursday at the Jayette Relays in Perry. Scoring 154 points as a team, Woodward was one point behind West Marshall. Nevada was close by with 133 points in a well-spread contest.

Getting the team’s most points, the 4x100 and 4x200 relay teams each had a two-second cushion in first place at 53.06 seconds and 1:58.47, respectively. The link between both relay groups, sophomore Aubri Bartelson took third place in the 100-meter dash herself at 14.00 seconds. Her initial pace last year was 13.82 seconds.

The team’s three solo wins came from a few of leaders from last year’s team: Eva Fleshner, Keilayla Gregory and Jaidyn Achenbach. 

Building off her phenomenal cross country season, Fleshner won the 1,500-meter run with a time of 5:09.72. As a freshman at the same meet in 2023 she ran 28 seconds behind that pace (winning gold as well). She was 23 seconds ahead of the pack on Thursday.

In the field, Gregory edged out the competition with a 31-foot-3 shot put toss holding over a foot of an advantage and is just inches away from last year’s top throw. And in the sandpit, Jaidyn Achenbach reclaimed her top spot among the team’s long-jumpers as she landed a distance of 14-9 for first prize.

Boys Track

Points came at a premium on Friday in Winterset as the Hawks took 11th place at Winterset’s invitational with 14 teams attending.

Getting the team’s highest mark of the day, Cael Leighton took third place with time of 52.61 seconds in the 400-meter dash. That’s a sign in the right direction for Leighton who led the team last year as a freshman with a peak time of 53.32 seconds in the event. He’s already half a second ahead of that pace with over a month left to continue making improvements.

In a similar boat, Cooper Thielen already matched his best high jump from 2023 at 5-foot-8. He took fourth place on Friday. He’s two inches ahead of his out of the gate mark last year when he cleared 5-foot-6. 

Golf

Both Woodward's boys and girls golf teams missed out on their first appearance of the season, as cold and rainy conditions postponed the meet hosted by Ogden on Monday. W-G will head to Pleasantville on April 8 for a meet Earlham and Madrid are also attending.