DCG track places second at Norwalk, girls tennis notches first win
This week in Dallas Center was filled with improvements and personal victories. (Note: Events covered April 3-8)
Boys Track
The Mustangs had their best outdoor appearance thus far, walking out of Norwalk with a second place tag with 131 points competing with seven other teams. Note for the conference meet in a month, the hosting Warriors won with 192 points while Grinnell placed third at 85 and Carlisle’s 83 claimed fourth.
Overall, it was a substantial leap from last year’s visit south of Des Moines where DCG scored 87 points for third place.
That was headlined Monday with Eli Rupp ripping a 162-foot-8 throw in the discus for first place, demolishing the rest of the field by nearly 30 feet. That’s currently good for third place among Class 4A throwers this season and holding a 12-foot advantage among the conference ranks.
AJ Angus appears to also be contending for a conference crown after a second-place finish in the 800-meter run where he set a new PR of 1 minute 56.48 seconds. Ranked seventh in the state, he only trailed Norwalk’s top mid-distance runner. And over in the sprint circuit, John Kitenge also set a new personal best in the 200-meter dash at 23.12 seconds for third place, getting bested by a pair of Carlisle teammates.
Girls Track
With an identical score to the boys’ 131 points, the Mustang girls also placed second Monday in Norwalk. Unlike their counterpart, they were over 30 points better than the third place Warriors and only trailed Ames’ 146 points — boding well for conference competition.
Providing one of the biggest boosts, Maddie Schmitz won a photo finish in the 100-meter dash with a new PR of 12.82 seconds.
Tight competition also brought the best out of Piper Messerly who refreshed her time to 4:51.74 in the 1,500-meter run. That was brought on by the freshman running stride-for-stride with Ames’ Lauren Risdal who edged her out by 0.27 seconds. The two ran by each other’s side for the first mile back in October at the state cross country championship as well.
Another two key parts to the XC season, Emily Meyers and Maddy Stevens placed first and second, respectively, in the 3,000-meter to parallel their top-20 finishes back in October.
Girls Tennis
DCG racked up its first win of the season, finishing off Audubon with an 8-1 score on Friday. That also marked the first career win for first-year coach Madi Overmann.
Winning all but one singles match, the Mustangs were 5-1 on that front including two shutout wins posted by Ella Swanson and Ellie Laskey in positions five and six. Linked together in the top doubles spot, Gwen Farley and Kayla Reis also shutout their opponent 8-0.
Boys Tennis
The Mustangs took in a couple of matches in Boone this week, first taking sixth place in a six team tournament on Saturday. They returned to McHose Park on Monday for a one-on-one and fell 10-1 to the Toreadors.
Boys Soccer (2-1)
Notching their second-straight win with at least 10 goals, the Mustangs clutched an 11-2 win Thursday over Des Moines Christian (0-3). With eight players scoring, DCG kept its announcer busy all evening but it was Cyrus Khosravi that led the way with three goals. Brogan Fuller brought in two as well.