UNDERWOOD — The Panorama girls track team sent only a partial squad and left three events open Thursday to the Underwood Invite, but despite those restrictions still managed to place second overall.
Treynor’s 142 points won the meet, but the Panthers impressed with 132 points for second place in the seven-team field.
“We set this meet up to hopefully improve our times in a few events and with the chance of qualifying for the Drake Relays in a few events, but the weather just didn’t cooperate,” Panorama head coach Greg Thompson said. “We left three events open (the 1500 and both the sprint and distance medley relays) and tried to rest some of the athletes who have been loaded meet after meet, so to then only miss out on a team championship by 10 points was impressive.”
The Panthers had only added the meet in the last week, doing so after the April 11 meet at AC/GC was cancelled. Panorama was on spring break, and that also limited the athletes available to participate.
“The girls didn’t really want to go to this meet, but their competitiveness took over once the meet started,” Thompson said. “This was a good meet to experience in case we have cold and windy conditions again.”
Thompson lauded the efforts of Lydia Knapp, who set three personal bests in four events while breaking a school record, and he was noted the two personal bests provided by Payton Beckman.
Knapp shattered Kayla Muyskens 2007 mark of 135 feet, six inches in the discus with a spin of 137’4, the best by a Panther girl since 1999. Knapp was also fourth in the shot put with a push of 34’9, with Claire Woodworth eighth in the former (88 feet) and fifth in the latter (34’4-1/2).
Kassidy Bremer and Shey Storesund were 1-7 in the long jump at 16’4-3/4 and 13’9-1/4 with Morgan Johnk the victor in the high jump after clearing 5’4.
Johnk also won the 100 hurdles (16.82), with Storesund sixth (19.19) in the race while Payton Douglass crossed third in the 400 hurdles in 1:20.21.
Payton Beckman and Angel Poldberg were 1-7 in the 400 in 1:05.52 and 1:14.13, with Poldberg eighth in the 200 (34.45) and Hope Arganbright third in the 100 (14.55). Jordan Brown placed seventh in the 3000 in 15:50.92 while running the 800 in 3:40.48.
The depth of the top-ranked team in 2A was revealed in the relays, where the Panthers won all five of the events they contested.
Johnk, Knapp, Bremer and Arganbright ran the 4×100 (53.3) and Knapp, Bremer, Arganbright and Bailey Beckman the 4×200 (1:53.6) while Johnk, Storesund, Payton Beckman and Abbi Brown competed in the shuttle hurdle (1:09.34).
Payton Beckman, Lydia Lindstrom and both Olivia and Gwen Steffen were the winning foursome in the 4×400 (4:25.39), with the Steffen twins, Lindstrom and Payton Beckman competing in the 4×800 (10:39).
The schedule for the Panthers is a scattered one in the upcoming week, for coed events are scheduled at Audubon Tuesday and AC/GC Thursday, but several Panthers will compete in the Drake Relays Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
