A blue track didn’t exactly translate into a blue sky for the ISU track and field teams this weekend as they competed in the 101st annual running of the Drake Relays at Drake University in Des Moines.

Early Friday morning the skies opened up and dropped a heavy dose of rain on Drake Stadium, sending spectators for their ponchos and leaving athletes to put forth their best efforts on the wet track and field surfaces. The cloudy skies weren’t completely effective at dampening the atmosphere at Drake Stadium as the women’s distance medley relay team for the Cyclones emerged as Drake Relays champions.

The relay team of seniors Lisa Koll and Erin Penticoff and sophomores Semehar Tesfaye and Kianna Elahi were able to run through the rain to come home in a time of 11:08.64. The time was quick enough to break the previous school record set in 2000 by nearly 20 seconds.

Koll, a Fort Dodge native and the current collegiate world record holder in the 10,000-meter run, dropped down in distance to run her first race since setting the collegiate record in the 10,000-meter run March 26 at the Stanford Invitational. Koll joined a fellow Iowan on the relay team — Penticoff, a former Cedar Rapids Xavier prep star — in sharing the feeling of being able to be successful in their final Drake Relays as a Cyclone.

“It’s so fun. I’ve always been jealous of people that get to carry the flag, and it’s awesome to be able to do that my senior year and hear the crowd cheering for Iowa State. It’s really fun,” Penticoff said of the home girls’ Drake victory.

Although being able to take a victory lap on Drake’s famous blue track surface may have held special meaning to the Iowans, the experience was something special for both Elahi and Tesfaye as well.

“It was pretty amazing. I’ve never carried a flag before,” Elahi said. “Winning at Drake, like they said, is amazing. You can just feel the Iowa support when you walk to the starting line. It’s my favorite meet because of the support, it was awesome.”

The Cyclones weren’t finished with their victories yet as redshirt freshman Rico Loy made the most of his waiting in the rain with a stellar finish in the 1,500-meter run. Loy came from behind to win down the homestretch, but almost quit a little too early.

“I usually finish really well. Today wasn’t like that. The last 100 meters, I thought I would maybe get to second or third,” Loy said. “There are two lines and I thought the first line was the finish and realized it quickly and leaned too early and nearly fell.”

He was able to keep his balance to cross the finish line first and become the seventh Cyclone to win a Drake Relays crown in the 1,500-meter run.

Elahi carried her successes in the relay to a great individual effort in the 400-meter hurdles, finishing with a personal best time of 58.59 seconds to finish second in the event. An additional school record was broken en route to a second-place finish by the men’s distance medley team of senior Brandon Rooney, juniors Hillary Bor and Elphas Sang, and freshman Brian Sandvig.

With Rooney running the final 1,600-meter anchor in 3:59.9, the Cyclones were able to charge ahead with the lead coming to the finish line, but failed to hang on for the win, falling to second place. Rooney’s effort propelled the relay team to the new school record time of 9:33.39.

“You can look at our school records, and any time you break a school record it’s a pretty good record, especially the men,” said coach Corey Ihmels. “Hillary led us off great, Brian had a tremendous quarter leg and Elphas looked the best he has since he’s been here, and it was probably the best mile race I have seen Brandon run.”

The squad had made a last-chance effort to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships by running at a qualifier at Notre Dame earlier in the year, but failed to qualify when they ran a 9:40.77.

“We just were in it a lot more in this race, which is kind of a bummer, because if we have would have ran [the same time] indoors we would have been at nationals,” Rooney said. “The dynamic just worked a little better.”

The distance medley team of Rooney, Bor, Sang and Sandvig will not run again this season and not have another chance to improve on their new school record.

The distance crews continued to shine through the rain as the women’s 4×1,600-meter squad finished third with Tesfaye, Koll, Penticoff and junior Ines Fischer. Koll ran the anchor leg after starting well behind the leaders and was unable to make up enough ground to catch the front two runners from Minnesota and Iowa.

This could be Koll’s last Drake Relays unless her post-collegiate running career is able to bring her back in the future. This was realized by most in the crowd as she continues to put the finishing touches on a career that will leave her as one of the best female runners in Cyclone history. Some of those not in the crowd saw their chances to watch Koll run, including Iowa sophomore Betsy Flood.

Flood approached Koll after the race and asked for her autograph shortly after finishing just ahead of her in the 4×1,600.

“I don’t know, hopefully,” Koll said about participating in the Drake Relays again. “I mean, I like Drake and I think the crowd is really fun and good performances happen here, so I really don’t see it being out of the picture.”

The Cyclone sprinters had a strong showing from junior Jenna Caffrey, a former track standout at Burlington High School. Caffrey is a three-time high school champion in the 100-meter hurdles and was part of a shuttle hurdle relay team at Burlington that managed to win two state titles during her time there. The two-time state champ in the 100-meter hurdles came home fourth and enjoyed every second of her experience at Drake.

“Just running for the people that you’ve run in front of for years is the best part about coming back [to Drake],” Caffrey said. “It definitely adds extra motivation and joy to running here.”