The South Hamilton Hawks track teams made the short trip down Highway 69 on Thursday afternoon, to compete in the Ballard Co-Ed Early Bird at Ballard Middle School in Huxley. The Hawks were joined by the host Bombers as well as Bondurant-Farrar, Carlisle, Des Moines Christian, Grinnell, Iowa Falls-Alden, Norwalk, Pella Christian and South Hardin.
Field events started the day as the Hawks girls had a tie for 2nd in the high jump as Grace Neuberger and Isabel Swenson each cleared 4′ 8″. Kendra Hoversten would score in both the discus and shot put, placing 2nd in the discus with a throw of 96′ 3″, while placing 5th in the shot put with a throw of 33′ 3.5″. Daytona Ferrie would also place 4th in the discus with a throw of 93′ 4″. Freshman Davien Henderson would place 6th in the boys discus with a throw of 108′ even.
In the running events, the Hawks would take home 2 gold medals, the first coming from the boys sprint medley, which won in a time of 1:36.02 with the team of Severseike-Drake-Hodnefield-Koehnk. As of Friday morning, the Hawks SMR time places 3rd in Iowa behind Cedar Rapids Prairie and Lenox. The 2nd win would come in the boys 4×400, as the Hawks opened their title defense of the event with a time of 3:24.87 with the quartet of Koehnk-Ricke-Severseike-Hodnefield. South Hamilton’s time is the fastest in Iowa by over 2 seconds, and broke the 2024 Blue Oval Standard, automatically qualifying the Hawks for the 2024 Drake Relays.
In individual running events, Kolby Hodnefield would medal in two races, placing 2nd in the 400m Dash in a time of 50.88, and placing 3rd in the 100m Dash in 11.68. Reece Ricke would place 3rd in the 400m Dash in a time of 52.92. Tanna Thompson had the highest individual finish for the girls running events, placing 4th in the 200m Dash in a time of 28.13 seconds, while Brooklyn Doolittle placed 7th in 28.73. The girls 4×400 would be the Hawk girls top race, placing 3rd in a time of 4:30.48 with the team of Doolittle-Galetich-Thompson-Erickson.
South Hamilton’s boys would place 7th in the meet with 50 points, while South Hamilton’s girls placed 8th with 53 points. Full results can be found online at aatiming.com.