Walker’s two golds lead Red Oak at Clarke Invite

 OSCEOLA — The Red Oak girls’ track team took third at the Clarke Girls Invite Thursday in Osceola.

Red Oak recorded a team score of 98 points, edged out of the top two by the Southeast Polk JV team. Dallas Center-Grimes won the Class A meet with 142 points. Southwest Valley finished sixth in the six-team Class A field with 54 points.

The Tigers had three wins at the meet, with Kate Walker responsible for two of them. The first win for Walker came in the 400-meter dash as she and teammate Juhi Boeye took the top two spots. Walker ran a 1:02.61, while Boeye had 1:03.91.

The second Walker win came in the 1,500 as the senior ran a time of 5:18.92, easily finishing ahead of runner-up Jessica Pugh of Dallas Center-Grimes. Kendra Top of Southwest Valley was fifth with 6:06.30 and Ashley Brower took sixth with 6:07.33.

Brower also had a third place finish in the 3,000 as she ran a time of 13:11.46. Teammate Sydney Straw was fifth with 14:21.92.

Boeye meanwhile scored her first career field event win as she took the title in the long jump. Boeye got the tiebreaker as she jumped 15’5”, winning  over Amber Workman of Dallas Center-Grimes. Walker was third in the long jump with 14’10”.

Walker wasn’t done as she took second in the 200-meter dash with 27.64, seven-hundredths of a second behind Maddie Albers of I-35. Nikki Graber meanwhile was fourth in the race with a time of 29.62.

Red Oak had a third-place finish from Paige Shirley, who ran a time of 1:16.97 in the 400-meter hurdles. Shirley was edged out at the finish line by Southwest Valley’s Elizabeth Herzberg, who ran 1:16.23 to finish second.

Emma Ross also had an individual finish for Red Oak when she took fourth in the discus with a throw of 89’1”, a personal best. Southwest Valley’s Shanna Saunders was fifth with 86’8”.

Three Red Oak relay teams had third-place finishes at the Clarke Invite, including the 4x400 team of Shirley,  Sierra Athen, Hannah Vial and Boeye, who ran a time of 4:42.37.

The 4x200 team of Michaela Buntrock, Athen, Vial and Graber took third with 1:56.99. The 4x100 team featured Buntrock, Athen, Vial and Boeye as they ran 55.42.

The distance medley team of Hailey Fada, Georgia Havener, Ashley Crouse and Alexis Wingfield finished fourth with a time of 5:34.62.

The sprint medley team took sixth as Buntrock, Athen, Vial and Wingfield ran 2:22.20.

Southwest Valley scored one win at the Clarke Invite as the 4x800 team of Kelsey Means, Kendra Top, Diana Berggren and Elizabeth Fuller ran 11:28.13 to finish five seconds ahead of Dallas Center-Grimes.

The 4x400 team of Oakley Goodvin, Herzberg, Fuller and Means took second with 4:39.34.

Kaylea Wiechman meanwhile took fifth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 13.66.