Lone Tree’s shuttle hurdle relay opened the season with a first-place finish in Pekin’s Ruritan Relays on Monday, March 28. 

The Lions return three of the four runners who participated in the race at last year’s state meet, including junior Ethan Willoz, who also finished first in the 110-meter and 400-meter hurdle races on Monday. 

“I think it was pretty good,” Willoz said about the relay. “I think there’s definitely room for improvement. I didn’t run as good of a time as I wanted to. Drew (Gauley), he ran a really good leg. Cade Patterson, he three stepped most of the way, so that was pretty good. We had one (runner) that wasn’t all set in his blocks, but that’s an easy fix.”

Willoz said that it was special running in the state meet atmosphere a year ago, and the Lions are working hard to get back to Des Moines again.

“I think the overall goal is to make it back to state again, and I think that’s easily doable,” Willoz said. “We brought in a new coach, a hurdle specialist, and we’ve been introducing new drills.”

Coach Keely Hinkel has been working with hurdlers on both the Lone Tree boys and girls track teams. 

Sophomore Jader Barajas joined Gauley, Patterson and Willoz in the shuttle hurdle on Monday, replacing Alex Viner who graduated after participating in the state meet last year. 

Lone Tree picked up a pair of second place finishes in the 4x100 and 4x200-meter relays. 

“I think our guys competed really well,” Lone Tree coach Mike Close said. “We put some good races together and have some things to learn from, but overall we did great.”

Andrew Hotz finished second in the 100-meter dash, while Taylor Alberhasky and Joey Birtcher led the Class 2 field in the 1600-meter run. 

Gauley was second in the long jump with a leap of 18 feet, 2 ½ inches.

Full Results