DES MOINES — In a day packed with relay finals and field events, the 115th Drake Relays came to an end Saturday, highlighted by field events and relays with exciting finishes.
The Iowa State men’s team took home the Drake Relays cup with 35 points, while the women’s team scored 33 points and fell short of the women’s cup to Iowa, who scored 36.
Field events feed off Friday’s success
Starting in the morning with the hammer throw, junior Garret Wagner took second with a throw of 200-10. In the championship division, redshirt junior Zach Verzani placed sixth with a throw of 206-2.
In the women’s hammer throw, senior Kaitlyn Burson placed third with a throw of 190-7. That throw was five inches short of Nebraska’s Cammy Garabian, who threw 190 feet. Sophomore Ella O’Neall placed 17th with a throw of 168-7.
In the men’s javelin, sophomore Nathan Vincent placed eighth with a throw of 181-2, a throw that came on his first of six attempts.
Senior Sydney Willits was selected for the WACT women’s long jump, where she placed second with a jump of 21-5 ½, just 8 ¼-inches behind 2024 Summer Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall.
Sophomore Justin Gleason capped off the field events for Iowa State with a third-place finish in the long jump championship division. His fifth jump of 23-11 ¾ advanced him two spots on the leaderboard to solidify his place.
Latham and Cyclone relay teams go to battle on final day
The Cyclone men’s shuttle hurdle team was the first to go Saturday on the blue oval, as Alec Carr, Jack Latham, Grayson Hartman and Joseph Purbrick worked out an eighth-place finish with a time of 1:00.03.
Both the men’s and women’s distance medley teams blew last-lap leads when it was their turn. The women’s team came just two seconds short of a first-place finish, as their 11:09.58 resulted in second. However, this was the fastest outdoor time in school history since 2010.
Emanuel Galdino lost hold of his first-place spot on the final lap, as the men’s team took second with a time of 11:09.58, just 0.08 seconds short of South Dakota State. This time was also the fastest outdoor time in school history since 2010 and third overall.
After qualifying for the men’s 110-meter hurdle finals yesterday with his 14.01, Latham finished seventh in the finals with a time of 14.44, this time with the wind going against him.
The women’s sprint medley team blew a last-lap lead, falling short to Iowa by 0.41 seconds. They took second with a time of 3:44.53.
The men’s team came back on the last lap to snatch another Drake Relays title, as anchor Darius Kipyego traded spots throughout the last lap with DePaul and Iowa and grabbed first with a 3:17.23. This was Iowa State’s third in the event and first since 2021.
“Going into the last lap, I felt really good and the legs were feeling fine,” Kipyego said, “On the backstretch, I saw them making their move and was like, ‘Alright, I’ll let them go.’ When it got down to the final stretch, I knew I could beat them because I had it in the legs.”
One of Kipyego’s goals for the rest of the season is to make nationals and run an 800 in 1:45. Building upon his strengths has been his focus during practice, doing so in hopes of becoming a Big 12 champion.
The women’s 4×100 team ran to a fifth-place finish in a time of 46.17, 0.01 seconds slower than Friday but two positions faster than predicted. The men’s team also placed fifth with a time of 40.89, 0.22 seconds slower than Friday’s qualifier time and one place slower than predicted.
In the men’s and women’s 4×400 meter invitational relays, the women’s team placed fourth in a time of 3.39.84, while the men’s team placed sixth with a time of 3:12.78. These finishes cemented their positions in the overall standings, as the men’s team took the men’s cup and the women finished second.
Cyclone distance duo snags PRs at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invite
On Friday night, junior Rodgers Kiplimo and redshirt sophomore Ryan Watts were selected for the men’s 5,000-meter invitational at the Payton Jordan Invite at Stanford University, where both grabbed PRs and top-10 finishes. Kiplimo placed fourth with a time of 13:34.99, which advanced him to 10th all-time in Cyclone history. Watts grabbed eighth with a PR of 13:37.23.
The Cyclones will be back in action Saturday at the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson, Arizona, the weekend before running their first home outdoor meet of the year on May 9, the Cyclone Twilight.
