Cooley, Shields bring home silver medals at Drake

DES MOINES — While the Drake Relays is known for its iconic blue track, Southwest Iowa had its best performances on the field events side of the competition.

Familiar faces at Drake Stadium, Mount Ayr senior Aubree Shields and East Union senior Morgan Cooley both finished with runner-up performances in their top events.

Last season in the high jump, Shields placed third at state in Class 1A and 11th at Drake, both with marks of 5-02, low for the seasoned jumper.

She finally delivered a standout performance Friday morning as she leapt 5-07, tying her personal best and school record set earlier this season at the Panther Relays.

Though the mark would have tied for the win at last year’s Drake Relays, three girls made the 5-07 mark this year. While Shields and Reese Wagner of North Polk both missed at 5-08, Clinton’s Elle Lonergan made the jump on her final attempt, giving her the Drake title.

In the shot put, East Union senior Morgan Cooley came in seeded second behind Greyson Hartman, the powerhouse from Washington who was chasing the Drake Relays record.

Hartman blew away the competition, throwing 61-08.75 on his first throw, his third best of the day and yet nearly than 2-feet better than anywone else would throw all day. He won with a mark of 65-00.5.

Cooley had a short first throw, but was able to hit 59-11 on his third attempt. It would end up his best of the day.

“In my first couple rounds, I didn’t really like the technique,” Cooley said. “I slowed it down and got a good throw.”

After not qualifying last year as he recovered from injury, Cooley was shooting for a medal, a goal he easily met.

“His goal was to get 60, but I mean 59-11 and doing it on the biggest stage in the area is fantastic,” East Union coach Alex Kalbach said.

With his personal best of 60-06.5 set earlier this month at Central Decatur, Cooley has hopes to hit the mid-60s later in the year. He said watching Hartman perform helps push him to be his best.

“When he’s the top of the nation, it’s something to chase,” Cooley said.

Saturday, Cooley competed in discus where he had a mark of 151-02, lower than his typical performance. The event was originally scheduled for Thursday but was pushed to 8 a.m. Saturday due to weather.

“The early morning, it’s tough, and moving from one day to another kind of threw everyone off,” Kalbach said.

Cooley’s discus PR is 164.8, though he hopes to make it into the 170s before the season is up.

Creston’s Tom Mikkelsen qualified for the relays for the second consecutive year, narrowly making finals and placing one spot behind a medal.

“I really truly think that Tom was the best athlete I’ve seen him be yesterday,” Creston coach Maggie Arnold said. “I know it wasn’t a PR or a medal, but he had to get gritty in his final throw in the prelims just to make finals. And he did that. I was super proud of him.”

With his first two throws shorter than 51 feet, he needed to get an extra 2 feet out of his third throw to qualify for finals.

“I’d given him some things to change before that third throw, and he went out there and he did it and it got him the extra distance that he needed to get that ninth qualifying spot,” Arnold said.

In finals, Mikkelsen threw 54-04.75, bumping him up to sixth place, the final medaling spot.

That spot was sniped by Blake Lovell of Cherokee Washington who threw just 1 inch farther than Mikkelsen.

“I really thought that was a great performance by Tom. That sets him up really well going into the last month of the season,” Arnold said. “It gave him some more experience up here. It’s kind of hard to match that competitiveness with the competition we see at regular meets. So it was a really good opportunity for him. And I think those little changes he made going into the finals with his form are going to carry over to in our competitions that we’re going to have coming up.”

The state qualifying meet will be held Thursday, May 14 beginning at 4 p.m. Creston will travel to Glenwood while East Union and Mount Ayr will be at Central Decatur.