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Beal leads Lady Cards at L&C meet

Alan Dale

Randolph Times

WINNEBAGO — The Randolph Lady Cardinals track team continues to progress as they competed in their final two meets before Thursday’s D-3 District event in Humphrey.

The Lady Cardinals scored 19 points at Winnebago last Tuesday in “one of the toughest meets” of the campaign, according to head coach Ted Stubbs.

Junior Bailey Beal led the girls with three individual medals on the day. In her first meet running the 100, she placed fourth with a time of 13.41, while she also finished third in both the long jump (15-1) and high jump (4-8).

Erin Engel earned the girls’ other medal with a new PR in the shot put with a throw on 29-11 for seventh place.

“I felt like overall we really competed well and for such a big talented meet did some really good things,” Stubbs said.

The program hosted its own invitation two days later on a cold and rainy afternoon, but that didn’t deter the Lady Cardinals from posting their best result of the season – 60 points – against a small group of talented opposing teams, according to Stubbs.

Beal led the way with wins in the 100 meters and the long jump, while finishing second in the high jump and running a leg on the second-place 400 relay team.

“Our best event of the day was the long jump where we scored 16 points as Nicole Haselhorst and Ella Scott finished fourth and fifth respectively,” Stubbs said.

Scott also finished third in the 200 and 400 meter runs while Haselhorst also scored in both hurdle events.

Engel was third in the shot put and ran a leg on the medaling relay squad.

“As we wind down the season with districts Thursday, I feel like we are peaking at the right time with several girls getting better as we go along,” Stubbs said. “We hope to get some qualifiers to the state meet but will have to have a good day from several girls to do so.”

Engel said the athletes who push themselves have continued to excel and improve.

“Bailey winning the 100 at our home meet, I am proud of her,” the junior Engel said. “For track especially, we didn’t get our freshmen year because of COVID, so me and Bailey, we did pretty good in junior high. Now, you have two years of freshmen and juniors and seniors competing and we weren’t happy with how our track season came out last year.

“We wanted something to be successful and we have been working. It is so much fun to see something good and winning to happen in our lives.”

It’s a nice shift from the battles the girls fought in volleyball and basketball and now the momentum this spring could reignite things for the following sports calendar.

“Half of it is just participation,” Engel said. “People who actually want to be there, have been getting better and when we see this success, it will carry into districts and hopefully after and into the summer it will be, ‘I love that feeling of seeing my work pay off.’

The Randolph boys and head coach Eric Brown also saw some solid results last week as Justin Guenther scored points in the mile and two-mile races while also aiding the 4x100 relay.

Gabe Wortman ran the 400 meters for the first time this year and placed sixth. “We are going to give him a go with that event at districts,” Brown said. We are going to try out a few guys in certain spots in hopes of competing well at districts so we will work on that at practice throughout next week leading to Thursday.”

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