DES MOINES — The 88th running of the Drake Relays Friday and Saturday provided a number of thrills for the enthusiastic sellout crowd, including new records, photo finishes, near misses and of course, Michael Johnson. The Iowa State men’s and women’s track teams took part in “America’s Athletic Classic” and completed the weekend with a successful showing and several standout performances.

Both teams enjoyed the highs and suffered through the lows of one of the most exciting track meets in the country.

“We were overall pleased with the two days. Some really good things happened, and we had some disappointments along the way too, but that’s track and field,” Women’s Head Coach Dick Lee said.

“We had some great performances, but talk about bittersweet and this is it. The number of injuries we suffered were really downers, and then you turn around and have Jason and Josh perform the way they did was the real highlight,” Men’s Head Coach Steve Lynn said.

The Cyclones’ Jason Woods and Josh Hagedorn brought home first place finishes as they were able to top a solid field of competitors. Woods took the 110-meter high hurdles crown by blowing away the field with a time of 13.77 seconds.

Hagedorn captured the shot put title with a throw of 63-7, the farthest throw in the nation by a collegiate this year. Several other Cyclones placed among the top flight competitors that attended the relays this year.

Woods was able to electrify the crowd with an impressive performance in the hurdles.

After battling through the preliminaries with the fastest qualifying time, Woods came out in the final and proved he was indeed the top hurdler in the field. A slow start out of the blocks didn’t stop the junior from capturing his first individual Drake Relays title.

“Yesterday I didn’t have a real good start, not a real good start today but the main point of my race is from five on so that helps me through. From five on I was able to correct myself and make some adjustments to help carry me through the finish,” Woods said. “This is a great competition, great athletes and I’ve been running real well the last couple of weeks and was real confident going into the final,”

“To have Jason pretty well take apart that field in the highs, that was really neat to see him do that. He just ran a real solid race and it was impressive. He felt a little bit of pressure in the fact that he was the best guy in the race and was still able to run a solid race,” Lynn said.

Hagedorn captured his first Drake Relays title in a dramatic fashion. With his last throw of the meet, Hagedorn not only took the lead but came up with the longest throw in the nation by a college athlete this year. With only one competitor remaining after his throw, Hagedorn’s throw held up for the win.

“I just wanted to cap one off and make sure I had it. When it took off I just wanted to make sure I stayed in. When it left my hand I just felt like it was gone,” Hagedorn said.

When asked about his reaction to having the farthest throw in the nation, Hagedorn said, “That’s just a little frosting on the cake, I wasn’t expecting to do that. After indoors I missed going to nationals by a few centimeters, I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again.”

“I’m excited for Josh, him being a senior and never winning Drake before was really special. He’s worked hard to get this far and he threw very well today. I’m really proud that he did it,” Lynn said

Playing to the crowd, Yago Lamela-Tobio jumped his way to a pair of second place finishes. Lamela-Tabio came in second in the long jump Friday, jumping 24-7 3/4 and was the runner-up in the triple jump on Saturday with a jump of 52-9 1/2. Rickey Madison came in fourth in the long jump with a 24-4 1/2 effort.

“Yago did a great job, he’s been jumping really well lately and it showed in his performance today,” Lynn said.

Jamie Beyer and Tim Wilson represented the Cyclones well in the discus with second and third place finishes. Beyer threw a 185-4 for a new career best and Wilson a 182-3.

Cyclone sophomore Jane Groves ran her way to a third place finish in the 1,500, for one of the top performances among the Cyclone women. Groves was in the lead group for the duration and led for a time before finishing in third.

“I thought Jane ran a good race in the 1,500. The pace started to slow down a little so she decided somebody had to step up and make a move and actually helped out a couple of other runners, but somebody had to step up and start pushing the pace. She really ran well, and I’m happy for her,” Lee said.

Along with the winning performances, injuries plagued the Cyclone men as Randy Thompson pulled a hamstring in the preliminaries of the 4 x 100 relay. Corey Ihmels was unable to finish the 1,500 because of a hamstring also, and David Lichoro couldn’t finish the steeplechase because of a pulled quadriceps

“Starting the meet off with the first event and have a major injury to Randy, who very well could have won the 100, really hurt. Corey couldn’t finish his race and he was by far the best guy in that field and then David in the steeplechase was running great and with one lap left his quad just gave out,” Lynn said.

The men’s and women’s distance medley relay teams were each able to run to a couple of fourth-place finishes.

Kevin Farrow, Jason Woods, Brian Smith and Saul Lempirikany made up the men’s team that ran a 9:51.11. The women’s team of Kim Iverson, Sara Riemersma, Erin Bresnan and Groves finished with a time of 11:35.21.

“These were two of the nicest days at the Drake Relays we’ve had in a long time, there was a great crowd and there were a lot of competitive races and I think a lot of times will drop in the next couple of weeks,” Lee said.

The Cyclones men’s and women’s teams will each compete in the Badger Invitational on May 3 at Madison, Wis. for their next competitions.