DES MOINES — Everything was going right at the Drake Relays on Friday.

Attendance was high and the weather was warm. Saturday was the complete opposite — weather was rainy and cold.

Since renovations in 2006, Friday’s session was the highest attendance at the Drake Relays for a Friday session, with fans filling 12,298 seats. The weather also set a record as the 85 degrees was the hottest the Relays had seen since 1986. Attendance on Saturday, however changed for the better despite the weather as, for the 44th consecutive time, the Drake Relays Saturday session sold out.

Things for the Iowa state men, however, stayed much the same from Friday to Saturday. There were some bright spots but for the most part, the men had an average performance.

One bright spot was the 4×100-meter relay team, which squeaked its way into the final heat of eight teams, and placed eighth by four one-hundredths of a second, but that wasn’t the closest margin. The combined margin between Iowa State (eighth), Michigan State (seventh), and Georgia (sixth) was .003 of a second.

As Justin Peel, the lead runner, walked up to his blocks for the final, the rain started coming down. Although the rain may have shaken other teams, it did not affect the Cyclones as they finished fourth.

“Once I got out and got the stick, everything was fine between Bryce and me, the rain just went out of my head and I just ran forward, said sophomore Derron Montgomery, who anchored the race. “I just ran like I wanted to.”

The team’s mentality going into the race was simply to get to regionals. Montgomery said that the rain slowed them down to a time of 41.47 seconds, but still thinks the team can hit the regional mark of 40.66 seconds.

One member of the 4×100 meter relay team, Ian Warner, also qualified individually for the finals in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.69 seconds. Warner, however, false started in the 100, automatically disqualifying him from the race. Although he was disqualified, Warner, a freshman, had already regionally qualified in that event.

The 4×800 meter relay team was a mix of bright and dark spots. Michael Alexander, the first leg, narrowly missed tripping coming around the turn to finish his leg, putting the Cyclones in second to last place.

Enter senior 800 meter specialist James Galvan. Galvan took his handoff from teammate Johnny Reel and ran the race of his life. Galvan, effortlessly striding, slung the relay team on his back and brought the team back to life. Galvan charged from second to last all the way to ninth place before he handed the baton off to sophomore Brek Minarik. The Cyclones finished the race 13th.

After his race Galvan, who split 1:48.2 the third fastest split of the entire field, he said, “It was easy. I wish it was an open race; I still had a lot of energy left in my tank.”

Galvan would once again shock life back into his relay team, this time in the distance medley relay. He ran the fastest 800 split out of the field and again put his team back into racing position. Galvan took the team from 16th up to 5th. Galvan handed off to Kiel Uhl, who lost a few positions during his race, but kept the team in the top ten, with a ninth place finish.