DES MOINES – The ISU women finally got into the swing of the Drake Relays after running during the Relays Under the Lights Friday evening at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.

In the first event “Under the Lights” – although the sun was still shining brightly – the Cyclone women took off in the 4×200-meter relay.

The group got off to a good start, led by junior Lashawn Wright, taking the lead early on from lane five with a smooth handoff to freshman Kianna Elahi – who made her Drake Relays debut in the event.

“All of our exchanges went very well,” the exhausted Wright said after the race had ended. “The 4×2 is a slower pace, so you don’t have to get up as quickly and worry about messing up handoffs.”

A smooth handoff was a rarity for the Cyclones during Friday’s relay events, as they had several baton troubles throughout the afternoon and into the night session.

Wright was a member of the 4×100-meter team that struggled to a 46.47 and missed out on qualifying for Saturday’s final in the event.

The Cyclones struggled with all three of their exchanges in the race, according to Wright.

“With a couple of people being hurt, it’s hard to get [handoff workouts] done,” Wright said. “But, once we have more practice I know we can do better.”

The goal for the 4×100-meter team was to qualify for the NCAA Regional competition with a time of 45.7.

Assistant coach Nate Wiens heads up both the 4×200 and 4×100-meter teams and said that team chemistry will be key to future success in both races. This was the first time the team had competed in either event during the outdoor season.

In the 4×200-meter event, Elahi and senior Leia Jackson were able to maintain their lead with good exchanges before heading into the final leg.

Junior Monique Hawkins ran the anchor leg in the event, and struggled to hold off Shawana Smith of Eastern Illinois down the stretch. Smith closed the gap through the turn and into the backstretch, and kept Hawkins fighting to the finish line.

As the race got closer, the near-capacity crowd at the historic stadium grew louder, but in the end, Smith and Eastern Illinois edged Hawkins and the Cyclones by .19 of a second.

“It still feels good because we’ve all been training really hard,” Wright said, still gasping. “We were just trying to finish hard and be able to compete.”

Later in the evening, after the lights took control, junior Erin Penticoff led the way for the Cyclone women into the 4×800-meter relay.

Penticoff started fast and took a large lead into the second lap of the first leg. The field slowly began to gain on Penticoff, though, and it took a strong finish from the 800-meter specialist to go into the second leg with a small lead.

Freshman Kersten Thorgaard ran the second leg for the Cyclones, and got off to a good start before getting caught up in traffic on the front stretch. Thorgaard was bumped from the side, causing her to drop the baton early into her two-lap run.

Thorgaard spun a quick 180-degree turn to retrieve the fallen baton, but was then trapped behind the field.

“I missed [what happened], but all of a sudden I turned around and we were way far behind, so I figured something bad happened,” Penticoff said after the race.

The fumble happened after an exchange that Penticoff described as messy, but the exchange zone was crowded due to the very large field in the race.

The 4×800-meter team struggled to a 13th-place finish, over 41 seconds behind the team from Minnesota that has now won the last three Drake titles in the event.

This race was just another example of the importance of handoff execution in the relay events, something the Cyclones are relatively new to.

This was the first competition for many of the athletes in relay events during the outdoor season, showing the importance of experience on the big stage, as well.

“In the 4×8, handoffs are still important, but we don’t practice them a lot,” Penticoff said. “We kind of threw this together last minute, so I’m sure in the future we can knock off a couple of seconds.”