Cyclone Girls’ Track Eeks Out Team Win at Underwood

Harlan Community's Paige Sonderman (4-30-26)

Cyclone Girls’ Track Eeks Out Team Win at Underwood –

(4-30-26) – Every… point… counts.

That ended up being the case Thursday at the Underwood Co-Ed where the Harlan Community girls’ battled all night and earned just enough points to win the team title with 134.5 pts… half a point better than 2nd place Glenwood.

“That was really exciting for the girls,” said Cyclone Girls’ Track Coach Jenny Hamilton. “It was nice to have the live results last night so we could kind of keep track of that team score and so the girls knew that it was going to be close and instead of getting nervous about it, they just, they stepped up and they competed hard. So, it was really, really fun.”

Harlan Community girls won seven of the 19 events, including victories in the Distance Med, Shuttle Hurdle, and 4x400m relays, the last of which gave them the overall team victory.

Hamilton is proud of the effort her team puts out by participating in several different events when called upon.

“Track gets called an individual sport sometimes, but we really try not to approach it with that mindset. We do pay a lot of attention to our team's score, and we ask the girls to do a lot more than just their favorite event or just the event that they're most confident in. We really do depend on everybody.”

Paige Sonderman was part of the Shuttle Hurdle team with Ari Daniels, Brinley VanBaale, and Ainsley Mages, that won in 1:14.10. She talked about how she’s able to help her team in so many different events.

“I started the season off running 400s and ended last year running 400s and then I kind of started running like more 100s and 200s,” said Sonderman. “You just got to have the mindset of being able to run like everything you can and no matter what you get put in, like you're going to do it.”

Ashlyn Rau won the 3000m in 11:36.91 and the 1500m in 5:18.96. Julia Heslink was also active, winning the 800m with a time of 2:18.59 and running the anchor in the Distance Med and 4x400m wins. Hamilton was impressed with work ethic Heslink put in, running three 800m’s and a 400m during Underwood meet.

“Julia's been really fun to work with. She's a competitor. She wants to win and she's really not afraid of anything that we ask her to do.”

Meanwhile, Sonderman knows this is the time of year she has to work harder if she’s going to accomplish her goal of reaching State.

“A lot of practices, like I just got to push myself to get up there, get in the front, no matter if I'm tired or not. Like I got to get up in the front because I'm really hoping to end the season at the Blue Oval so, I got to really push myself now.”

Final regular season meet for Harlan Community will be Monday at Atlantic for the Bruce Henderson invite.

View past scores by visiting the Iowa High School Athletic Association's website, Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union website,
or Iowa Quik Stats