Iowa State Men’s Head Track Coach Steve Lynn was enthused to say the least about his team’s performance at the Drake Relays held in Des Moines on Friday and Saturday.

“It’s like I said before. If you win one championship at Drake, you’ve had a great meet. We won three, so that tells you how pleased we are,” Lynn said.

Iowa State senior steeple chase runner Dmitry Drozdov, who hails from Penza, Russia, captured the steeple chase championship for the unprecedented fourth time in four years with an impressive time of 8:47.98. Drozdov also holds the fastest time this season in the event.

Drozdov, who won his first steeple chase title in 1992, may have a future career in the 1996 Olympics.

“Dmitry ran a great race. It’s was really good to see him win [the steeple chase] again,” Lynn said. “He will need to run about 10 seconds faster than he did at Mt. Sac. If he does, then you’ll probably see him in Atlanta. He’s really going to go after that at the NCAA meet.”

The ISU 4 x 100 meters championship team of Jerry Harris, Jason Woods, Randy Thompson and Franklin Nwankpa also outran a tough University of Texas-El Paso team to win with a time of 39.31.

“It all started back at the Big Eight Outdoor last year when we were the only ones who thought that they would win it. The team is better this year. The only difference in that Calvin Branch led off last season. Jason Woods, who is usually our weak leg, ran by a lot of people and really helped us out,” Lynn said.

“That was the third fastest time in the country, and I think the fourth fastest time, this year, in the world.”

The Cyclone men also captured the title in the shuttle hurdle relay with Eric Strim, John Barnett, Chris Wycoff and Woods. But there was more to the story on the championship effort.

“Before the prelims, Erik hurt his quad on Friday, but we thought he could come back and run the finals. So we asked Jerome Henry, who just got out of football if he could run it. Jerome hasn’t run hurdles, but he helped out and we had the second fastest time in the prelims,” Lynn said.

“Strim came back to run the finals and we won the event. It was great because all four runners were form Iowa. They’ve run there since high school and the crowd was very involved. In the course of 20 minutes, we won three events.”

Also for the ‘Clones, Yago Lamela-Tobio finished second in the triple jump with a leap of 51-2 1/4.

“Yago also had a good meet, we we’re pleased with him,” Lynn said.

Lynn was also impressed with the performances of Cyclone women tracksters Trina Radske and Heather Nelson.

Radske finished second in the long jump with a leap of 20-9, while Nelson finished second in the shot put with a toss of 53-2 3/4.

“Both Nelson and Radske had outstanding meets. It was good to see that,” Lynn said.

Both the men’s and women’s track squads will travel to Knoxville, Tenn., on May 5 to compete against Clemson, Tennessee, South Carolina and Kentucky.

“That should be a outstanding meet. We have to see where the kids are with the finals, and who ever is ready to compete will make the trip,” Lynn said.