Indians earn two more medals

A Bishop Heelan runner crashes to the ground as Spirit Lake Parks’ Chris Hemphill completes the exchange to John Leinbaugh in the 4x200-meter relay on Friday.
DES MOINES — The Spirit Lake Park track teams picked up a couple more medals in day 2 of the 2008 State Track Meet and qualified a relay for Saturday’s finals.
The SLP boys followed up Thursday’s winning 4×800-meter relay with a sixth-place finish in the distance medley.
The quartet of John Leinbaugh, Boomer Dreeszen, Alyx Campbell and Brandon Griffin clocked in at 3 minutes, 37.54 seconds.
On the girls side, Jen Kirschbaum placed seventh in the shot put with a throw of 37 feet, 3 inches.
“I was really excited to be able to place in my senior year,” said Kirschbaum.

Senior Jen Kirschbaum ended her high-school career with a seventh-place finish in the shot put on Friday. Photo courtesy Dan Voigt, Emmetsburg Publishing
However, she said her seventh-place throw was 8 inches off her career best.
Her sister Amber just missed on the medal round. She placed ninth with a throw of 36 feet, 8 1/2 inches.
The Indians’ other highlight of the day was the girls 4×400-meter relay team.
The quartet of Deni Peters, Kaisha Brown, Alex Horsman and McKenzie Dziedzic placed eighth in 4:09.18 to qualify for Saturday’s finals.
The Indians’ other events included a ninth-place finish in the 4×200-meter relay preliminaries in 1:47.91. That quartet included Megan Ingvall, Kylie Ingvall, Alex Horsman and Laura Rowe.
The girls 4×100-meter relay team placed 12th in the preliminaries. Megan Ingvall, Kylie Ingvall, Jessica Wallace and Megan Lawler ran a time of 51.66 seconds.
Back to the boys events, Chris Reed placed 18th in the shot put with a throw of 47 feet, 8 1/2 inches.
The Indians 4×200-meter relay team of Alyx Campbell, Boomer Dreeszen, Chris Hemphill and John Leinbaugh finished 19th in 1:33.91
Today’s SLP events include the sprint medley relay, Brown in the 800-meter run, Lawler in both the 100 and 200-meter dash finals, Carrie Emgarten in the 1500-meter run; Joe Nellis in the 800-meter run and Tyler Gustafson in the 1600-meter run.
- A Bishop Heelan runner crashes to the ground as Spirit Lake Parks’ Chris Hemphill completes the exchange to John Leinbaugh in the 4×200-meter relay on Friday.
- Senior Jen Kirschbaum ended her high-school career with a seventh-place finish in the shot put on Friday. Photo courtesy Dan Voigt, Emmetsburg Publishing