Hawks sending four to state meet, girls golf wins regional round
Just before baseball season officially kicks off this week, some of Woodward-Granger’s best have kept the spring season alive. (Note: Events covered May 9-14)
Girls Track
Coming off an appearance at the state cross country meet, and breaking a decades-old record this season, Eva Fleshner walked into Thursday’s state qualifiers with great odds to earn a couple of seats at the state meet this week.
Now the pressure is on to turn those into points, as the freshman phenom is ranked in the top 12 in both the 1,500 and 3,000-meter runs. She is seeded 12th overall in Thursday’s 1,500 and seventh in the longer run Saturday.
And marking the first time multiple Hawks girls have attended since the 4x800 relay team in 2019, Allie McCord added her name to the guest list as the 13-seed in the high jump on Friday.
Boys Track
The Hawks left the state qualifying meet in Van Meter on Thursday with hope they could get into the state meet and prevent a second straight year from being shut out of Drake Stadium, but it wasn’t a lock.
Placed fourth among the teams at Van Meter, the distance medley crew of Dylan McCaulley, Oliver Potter, Chandler Drake and Dillon Limoges clocked a time of 3 minutes 42.94 seconds and earned an at-large bid. Slotted No. 19 overall based on state qualifying times, that time puts the Hawks within a second of seeds 13-20. Talan Fuson, Ethan Jones and Cael Leighton are also attending as alternates.
They will run Friday at 3:20 p.m.
Boys Golf
The May 9 sectional meet in Panorama marked the end of the line for boys’ golf season, as the Hawks placed fourth among the eight teams. While their combined score of 359 was five strokes better than their previous visit to the WCAC tournament the previous week, W-G was outperformed by PCM and Des Moines Christian by 15+ strokes for the right to move on.
Of the 41 solo scores, the Hawks had four finish in the top half: Max Behrens (85 strokes, 9th); Nick Bermel (89, 11th); Tabor Lettow (91, 15th); and Landon Chambers (94, 18th).
Girls Golf
Friday’s first regional round went about as well as the Hawks could have hoped for. Blessed with hosting duties, Woodward-Granger cruised to a crown finish with a season-best score of 408. Not only did that knock six strokes off their previous best at the Woodward Golf Club, but the team’s combined effort was also 21 swings better than the runner-up.
Adding to the Hawks’ success, last year’s crew shot a 447 for third place during the same round.
Woodward’s success on Friday was made possible by a closely performing roster that had four Hawks place inside the top 15: Lindsay Mescher (100 strokes, 3rd); McKenna Carroll (101, 4th); Karissa Walker (105, 10th); and Sophie Smith (113, 15th).
Rolling into the Wednesday regional final at Lynnville-Sully with even more momentum, the Hawks hope to make a stronger push to keep the season going next week.
This article originally appeared on Perry Chief: Hawks sending four to state meet, girls golf wins regional round
