The Central boys track and field team showed off its strengths across individual races and relays, as well as field events, at the Upper Iowa Conference meet, held May 7 at Clayton Ridge.

Mason Loan represented the Warriors in each of the sprints, highlighted by a fifth place finish in the 400 meter dash on a time of 54.55 seconds. He claimed ninth in both the 100 and 200, earning respective times of 12.03 and 24.62 seconds.

Teammate George Reimer crossed the line 10th in the 200, while Griffin Koehn placed 16th in the 400 and Lukas Friedlein was 21st in the 100.

The distance races saw Jesse Polkinghorn finish eighth in the 800 meter run, clocking in at 2:16.60, then Declan Finley was 11th in 2:21.13. Carson Ruegnitz and Michael White placed a respective fifth and ninth in the 1600, turning in times of 4:54.95 and 5:22.75. White also ran to sixth in the 3200, his time of 11:25.79 just ahead of the 11:38.90 from Cruz Healy, who came in eighth.

In the hurdles, Tyce Zittergruen leapt to eighth in the 400 meters, finishing in 1:03.66. Zane Embretson ran a time of 19.08 seconds for 10th in the 110 meter race.

Central’s best result of the day came in the 4x800 relay, where Ruegnitz, Zittergruen, Finley and Polkinghorn were conference runners-up with a time of 8:49.70.

The 4x400 also performed well, with Polkinghorn, Henry Reimer, Ruegnitz and Zittergruen’s 3:47.79 good for fourth place.

The Warriors had a trio of eighth place finishes in the 4x200, distance medley and shuttle hurdle relays. The 4x200 included George Reimer, Zittergruen, Henry Reimer and Polkinghorn with a time of 1:40.69, while the distance medley posted a 4:22.66 with the combination of George Reimer, Henry Reimer, Healy and White. Embretson, Reimer, Breckon Holst and Koehn made up the shuttle hurdle team, whose time was 1:21.89.

Additionally, Central was 10th in the sprint medley (Henry Reimer, Julian Singleton, Holst and Friedlein) and 12th in the 4x100 (Embretson, Holst, Singleton and Friedlein).

Ruegnitz led the team in the field events, hitting a throw of 114-06 for ninth in the discus. Teammate Singleton was 13th after reaching 105-01.50, and also placed 11th in the shot put with a distance of 36-07.00. Embretson finished 14th in the shot put with a throw of 35-03.50.

Loan landed in 10th in the long jump, hitting a mark of 17.09.75.

This week is another big one for the Warriors, as they compete in the Class 1A state qualifying meet at Ed-Co on Thursday, May 14.