MITCHELL — Coach Eric Palmer knew there was a shot at history this year.
Coming into the track with a handful of returners, there were several long-standing school records that were on the radar, including the girls 4x100 meters, 4x200 meters and the girls 1600-meter sprint medley relay.
Heading into the state track meet, two have been broken and the third is well within the Kernels’ reach on Thursday.
“We had talked about it. We were within a second of three (records) last year, and we had everybody coming back,” Palmer said. “We’ve been talking about since Day 1 that we had two or three (records) that we were going to try to break. That was kind of the expectation.”
On May 2, the quartet of Ava Brannan, Mia Mullenmeister, Lizzie Tyler and Brooke Bartscher ran the girls 4x100-meter relay in 50.52 seconds, breaking a 32-year-old school record that was set in 1991 at 50.78 seconds. And on May 19, Bartscher, Claire Hegg, Mullenmeister and Tyler set another record, running the 4x200 in 1:45.16, which surpassed the mark set in 2002.
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“We kind of had it in the back of our heads that it was a possibility,” Tyler said of setting the records. “We've been super close before so to finally do it was just a lot of fun and it just showed that all of our hard work is paying off.”
Brannan started the 4x100 on May 2, continually reminding herself ‘go faster’ as she churned out the first leg, and when she handed the baton off, she felt confident.
“I ran down to the finish line right away and saw Brooke coming through and I knew that the time was close, but she had crossed so closely that I just didn't know,” Brannan said. “When (coach Amy Tyler) said we got (the record), we all just kind of jumped up and hugged each other and just shared that together.”
Hegg was the curverunner on the record-breaking 4x200 team and harkened back to “pretty brutal workouts” that involved running eight to 10 200s in a day with limited breaks, as well as doing hill workouts. But once the record fell, she said it was all worth it, adding that it was "very surreal."
The chemistry the girls have developed together over the years of running with one another has certainly helped in setting new records for Mitchell.
“I've done a lot of handoffs with these girls, and so it's become really easy and just kind of second nature for us,” Mullenmeister said. “I love the girls that I'm running it with, and it was really cool to see us break it after the records have been in place for so long.”
The sprint medley team is still eyeing a school record, which it nearly set at the Howard Wood Dakota Relays on May 6. The squad of Lainee Forst, Bartscher, Tyler and Carsyn Weich posted a time of 4:16.25, just shy of the 4:16.1 set in 1976.
Bartscher, who was a part of both record-breaking runs, is also a part of the medley team for the state meet and said they hadn’t had a ton of chances to work together. But now with the squad in place, she’s optimistic about being a part of record No. 3.
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“I think we have a really good shot,” she said. “I'm excited to have some handoffs and get that record, hopefully.”
“It'd be really cool,” added Weich, who runs the final 800-meter leg of the relay. “(It’s) something I'd like to experience, so I'm hoping that we get that chance, which we have a very good chance at that.”
The 4x100 team and 4x200 team will also have one more shot to re-break the newly-set records.
“We've prepared all season for this and we are so much more prepared than we were last year,” said Forst, who will be on the 4x200 team for state.
But what arguably excites the Mitchell coaches even more than the possibility of more school records, is the chance for team points at state.
“One thing that we’re excited about is we can score team points with the relays this year,” head coach Deb Thill said.
“We're definitely looking at upping our places,” Palmer added. “Being higher on that podium than we were last year in every single race.”
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