Historic Cardinals
May 23—DES MOINES — Newton's boys track and field team lined up for team photos at the end of the Iowa High School State Track and Field Championships with by far the smallest number of kids of any of the other squads who posed for pictures.
The Cardinals roster was small but mighty at the state meet and Newton used just 11 athletes to claim a prize it hasn't captured for at least five decades.
Thanks to several clutch performances and eight medal-winning finishes, the Cardinals took third in the final Class 3A standings inside Drake Stadium.
"We've been working hard for a long time. This means a lot to us," said Treycen Garton, one of Newton's talented seniors who led the way for the Cardinals. "I know Jackson (Mace-Maynard) is disappointed, but he was huge for us. He got us big team points. DCG and Pella are great teams, but it feels good to see our names up on that board, too."
It was an all-Little Hawkeye Conference party at the top of the standings. The championship came down to the final race and Dallas Center-Grimes edged defending state champion Pella for first place.
The Mustangs scored 73 points and Pella was the runner-up with 71.5. Newton scored 50 points in third, while Washington (44) and Marion (38) completed the top five.
"I feel like we changed the culture of the program and showed others that track can be fun and cool," Newton senior Derek Beiner said. "It's an important sport, and I think we've made it relevant again."
No one scored more team points for Newton than Jackson Mace-Maynard, but the Cardinal senior was disappointed overall in his weekend.
He wasn't able to win any of his individual races and the distance medley relay he anchored finished third. But without Mace-Maynard's four top-three finishes, the Cardinals do not celebrate with a team trophy at the end of the weekend.
"The single motivation I had in the last 600 of that mile was team points," Mace-Maynard said. "I made sure I stayed where I was for the team race."
The Cardinals ended the first day with 20 points.
Mace-Maynard began his busy weekend with a runner-up finish in the 3,200-meter run. He finished the race in 9 minutes, 30.71 seconds and trailed only Dallas Center-Grimes' Aidan Ramsey.
Ramsey, who will run for Drake next season, hit the finish line in 9:22.64. He pulled away from the front pack on lap five and continued to separate from the field before winning by eight seconds.
"It wasn't my best race. He's just better in this race than I am," Mace-Maynard said. "I stuck with him for a while but with 600 to go, he was pretty much out front for good. At that point, I wanted to make sure I got eight team points."
Newton's first competitor on Thursday was Keith Moko in the high jump. He gave the Cardinals a big six points as he finished third overall and matched a career-best mark with a leap of 6 feet, 4 inches.
Moko cleared the first three heights on the first attempt and then got over 6-4 on his second attempt. He missed all three jumps at 6-6. Ian Collins of Charles City was the high jump champion with a leap of 6-9.
"Third place, I'm mean I'm not mad," Moko said. "This is what I thought I could do. And it's what we needed for the team race. I felt good going over the bar today.
"I was so close to 6-6. I felt like I could get over that. I literally cleared it but got it on the way down. It felt so good.
The Cardinals third top-eight finish of the day came in the 4x800 relay where Newton's foursome of Derek Beiner, Cody Klein, Jared Smith and Garton placed third in a season-best time of 8:04.5. Western Dubuque won the race in 7:59.11.
"I went all out and my body was hurting with 200 left. I pushed through it and got my personal-best split of 2:01," Smith said. "I could have run the race better, but it feels good to get another medal."
Nate Maki competed in his two individual events on Thursday. He qualified for the finals in the 200 but was 11th in the 100.
In the 200, Maki tied two other runners with a time of 22.74 seconds but settled for seventh overall. The top eight finishers in the prelims advance to Saturday's final.
Maki ran 11.36 in the 100 but needed an 11.25 to reach the finals.
The shuttle hurdle relay team also missed the finals but ran a season-best time in placing 11th overall.
The foursome of Cole Swank, Curtis Payne, Reilly Trease and Reese Hammons finished the race in a season-best 1:03. It took a 1:02.22 to advance to the finals and Pella won the race on Saturday in 59.45.
Moko once again kicked off the next day in the long jump. In an event he picked up just this spring, Moko finished ninth with a leap of 20-11 1/4. He also had jumps of 20-10 and 15-8 1/4.
The Cardinal senior hovered around eighth the entire time but was bumped down to ninth on the final jumps. It took a 21-2 to make finals and Carlisle's Archer Ogbourne won the state title with a mark of 23-0 3/4.
The 4x200 relay team of Maki, Payne, Trease and Beiner finished 16th in the timed final with a time of 1:32.37. Council Bluffs Lewis Central won the race in 1:29.47.
"We were up and down really so it was kind of a roller coaster," Newton boys track and field coach Chad Garvis said. "We had a real awesome first day and our second day was not as good as we had hoped.
"There was a lot of ups and downs. We saw lots of great things from the guys and also had things not go exactly as we planned it."
That was the case in the 4x200 and distance medley relays.
The distance medley relay had title aspirations with Mace-Maynard on the anchor but settled for third with a season-best time of 3:33.85. That team also included Maki, Beiner and Garton.
DCG won the distance medley relay with a state-record time of 3:27.49.
There was a bit of controversy with the race. The 400 runner from DCG fell on his handoff to Ramsey and landed in Newton's lane, which affected the exchange between Garton and Mace-Maynard.
"I think it affected the handoff, yes," Garton said. "I tried to let Jackson know as I was running in. He then looked around to see what I was talking about and when he reached for the baton he missed my hand. It affected the handoff, the timing and Jackson's mentality after he got it. He had to go out harder to gain ground back.
"You just have to roll with it, but it was frustrating. I am upset about it, but we shouldn't have been that far behind anyway."
The final event of the day for Newton was the 4x400 relay. The Cardinals foursome of Klein, Garton, Smith and Beiner qualified for the finals with a season-best time of 3:26.96.
They were sixth in the prelims and it took a 3:28.4 to qualify for the finals.
Mace-Maynard and Garton began Saturday with the 800. Mace-Maynard grabbed another medal in the event with runner-up finish in 1:55.06. Garton was 14th in 2:00.98 and Ramsey won the race in 1:54.36.
Just after Maki ran in the 200 final, Mace-Maynard competed one last time with Ramsey in the 1,600. This time, the Cardinal senior who will run for the Air Force next season, placed third in 4:19.
Ramsey won the race in 4:15.24 and Marion's Shane Erb was second in 4:16.49.
"At the end of the day, Aidan is just better and there's not a single positive for me individually," Mace-Maynard said. "I was supposed to win and I didn't. I sucked all weekend."
Maki delivered a strong performance in the 200 final. Running in lane 1, the Cardinal senior who is headed to Iowa Central finished fourth with a career-best time of 22.21.
ADM's Brevin Doll won the race in 21.89 and Nevada's Caeden DaSilva was the runner-up in 21.90.
"I wanted top three, but I gave it my all," Maki said. "I thought I ran the best I could out of lane one in the finals, and I don't have any regrets.
"That's a lot of points. We still have points left out there to get. I think we have a good shot at third place now."
Maki was right. The Cardinals actually locked up third before the start of the 4x400 relay final.
Garvis said two of the biggest performances on the weekend came from Moko in the high jump and Maki in the 200.
"Those events could have gone either and they gave us clutch performances. We needed those points," Garvis said. "Those helped us out a lot. We could have gotten zero points but instead got five or six in each. That's 11 points, which is the difference between seventh and third."
The foursome of Klein, Garton, Smith and Beiner were on the track one final time in the 4x400 relay final.
The Cardinals ran another season-best time in 3:26.63 and finished fourth. Mount Vernon was the champion in 3:22.41.
Karl Miller rallied Pella (3:26.35) past DCG (3:26.37) in the final few meters, but it wasn't enough to shift the Dutch into the team lead.
The Newton runners said their goal was third coming in but all of them were happy with another top-five finish.
"I was hoping for third. We came in sixth, but fourth is pretty awesome. I'm happy with that," Klein said. "Getting third as a team feels even better. The seniors deserve it and we were able to send them out the right way. It's a hard earned third-place finish. It's really cool."
Beiner took the opportunity in a close race to dive across the finish line. He has a bruise on the top of his shoulder blade to prove it.
"With about 10 meters left, I thought it was a diving moment and I have never dove before so I just did it," Beiner said. "We got fourth place so it was definitely worth it.
The end of the state meet finalizes strong careers from the Newton senior class, which is headlined by Mace-Maynard, Garton, Beiner, Maki and Moko.
"I have coached these guys since seventh grade. I will be emotional at the banquet," Garvis said. "It's a group of kids who have always worked hard, had great attitudes and can have high expectations and 99 percent of the time meet those expectations. I will definitely miss those guys."
