While spring activities begin to wind down, summer sports practices began Monday, starting one of the busiest stretches of the sports calendar. (Events covered: April 29-May 6)
Boys Track
The Bulldogs landed in seventh place as a team at Tuesday’s West Central Activities Conference meet, earning one title along the way.
While Caleb Moore’s 11.07 seconds in the 100-meter dash was a silver finish, his forces combined with Drew Rhodes, Tate Doggett and Andon Watson in the sprint medley put Van Meter on top with a time of 1 minute 36.25 seconds. That knocked 0.19 seconds off their previous best time, needing every bit of improvement to win considering ACGC and Earlham were just 0.22 seconds behind them at the finish line.
Girls Track
Competition was a bit fierce on the boys’ side, but for the girls, no team could touch the Bulldogs, with Van Meter winning with 173 points. Second place Ogden collected just 84 points.
Along with the team’s trophy, Van Meter left Des Moines Christian’s track with four solo wins between Burkli Harkins (100-meter hurdles), Laura Streck (1,500 & 3,000-meter run) and Madison Boese (400 hurdles). Another four golds were captured by the relay teams between the 4×100 relay (Avery Banks, MaKenzie Dubbin, Teya Speltz, Bella Bruins) 4×100 shuttle hurdle relay (Boese, Haedyn Rebelsky, Kylie Keller, Harkins), 4×800 relay (Olivia Halfpap, Lydia Hunter, Lizzy McCann, Emma McCoy) and the 4×400 relay (Boese, Halfpap, McCann, Bruins) — the last of which set a new conference record with a time of 4:04.87.
Boys Soccer (11-1-1)
With some help from a home crowd for the entire week, the Bulldogs are now enjoying the program’s longest-ever win streak after capturing their ninth consecutive win. Wins of 3-0, 5-0 and 10-0 also make this the first time Van Meter has won by shutout three games in a row.
Monday’s 10-0 win over Underwood also set the school record with eight players recording a goal, with Tommy Kelly and Henry Lounsbury leading the team with two goals apiece.
While this winning streak has broken school history, the Bulldogs are still ranked sixth in the latest power rankings.
Girls Soccer (6-6)
After avoiding back-to-back losses in the first half of the season, the Bulldogs are now faced with a challenge to correct course down the home stretch of the regular season, having lost four of their last five games. It’s a similar pattern to last year, however, where Van Meter lost three straight games before ripping off three in a row at season’s end (before losing in the second round of regionals).
Boys Golf
Prior to the track team’s conference meet on Tuesday, the Bulldogs loaded up for the WCAC meet in Panora, placing ninth. Next week on May 14, Van Meter will travel to Clarinda for a state qualifying site.
Girls Golf
Monday saw the Bulldogs fall out of first place for the first time this season, taking fourth at the WCAC meet in Woodward. While 388 was their best score on a full 18 this season, it was 45 strokes behind Des Moines Christian’s gold standard.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Van Meter girls track wins conference title, soccer dominance continues
Reporting by Sean Cordy / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
