Cyclones’ Andersen earns fourth-place discus medal

 DES MOINES (May 16-18) -- It’s been two years since Gillian Streit won a state discus title for the Harlan Community girls track team and set the school record at 137 feet, 3 inches.
 If either of those feats are to be duplicated in the next couple of years, Cyclone sophomore Lauren Andersen will likely be the one to do it.
 Andersen provided the highlight of the 2019 state track meet for the HCHS girls last weekend, placing fourth in the Class 3A discus Thursday morning to secure the team’s only state medal and five points.
 Six days after qualifying 18th for state, Andersen won flight one with a throw of 117-11, then increased her distance to 121-2 in the finals. It was the second-best throw ever for Andersen, who earlier this spring established herself fifth on the school’s all-time top 10 list with a throw of 126 feet in Atlantic.
 “I just really had to relax a lot and not think when I went into the ring,” noted Andersen. “That’s what (Coach Todd) Bladt told me to do and I did it, so that helped me a lot."
 Of the Cyclones’ seven other state-qualified events, two came close to placing - the 4x800 and 4x200 relays - and one (the 4x400) notched a season-best time.
 The 4x800 quartet of Kaia Bieker, Liv Freund, Abby Alberti and Greichaly Kaster finished 10th in 10:01.76 on Thursday, their second-best time of the year.
 Running in the rain on Friday morning, the 4x200 relay team of Savanna Musich, Delaney Wegner, Chloe Hansen and Alberti finished 11th in 1:48.76. Later Friday, the 4x400 team of Bieker, Freund, Lilly Metzger and Alberti clocked a season-best time of 4:13.29 in the prelims and finished 21st.
 HCHS also finished 18th in the 4x100 relay (Musich, Wegner, Alberti, Hansen; 52.00) and 24th in the shuttle hurdle relay (Justine Buman, Ally Curren, Zophi Hendricks, Hansen; 1:17.41). Buman suffered a hard fall on the second hurdle of the race but courageously got up and finished to allow her teammates to compete and post a time.
 Additional HCHS qualifiers included junior Lucy Borkowski in the 3,000 and Bieker, a freshman, in the long jump. Borkowski finished 16th in 11:27.24 while Bieker jumped 14 feet, 5.25 inches in the rain Friday for 23rd.