Central’s Gray completes career pentathlon sweep
PELLA — For the fourth time in as many tries, Central College women’s track and field senior Mary Gray (West Des Moines, Waukee HS) won the pentathlon title at the American Rivers Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships.
As a team, the Dutch scored 79 points and finished fifth in the standings. Wartburg College won the team title with 200 points.
“I think overall, we went out there and competed,” coach Brandon Sturman said. “Certain things just didn’t fall our way. We had some people overperform and some people struggled a little bit.”
Gray tallied 3,293 points and was a top-three finisher in all five disciplines, recording the best shot put mark of 36 feet, 4.25 inches. She now owns four indoor pentathlon conference titles and two outdoors in the heptathlon.
“I don’t know if anyone else can say that they’ve won four straight tiles in the same event,” Sturman said. “That alone is a super accomplishment.
Finishing runner-up to Gray, Kiki Pingel (senior, Pella) had 4,208 points in the pentathlon. She’s a four-time runner-up in the event. She was also second in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 9.03 seconds. Gray was sixth in the hurdles in 9.28 seconds.
“Mary and Kiki went out there again and proved who they are and why they’ve been such a huge asset to our program,” Sturman said.
Pingel ran the second leg of the 4×800-meter relay team that finished second in a time of 9 minutes, 41.76 seconds. She was joined by Alyssa Mayhew (freshman, North Aurora, Ill., West Aurora HS), Caroline McMartin (freshman, Pella) and Mari Stein (sophomore, Okoboji).
“That group was phenomenal,” Sturman said. “We knew those were our best four and they went out there and broke a school record.”
Stein was the silver medalist in the 800-meter run (2:17.42) while McMartin was fourth in the mile run (5:12.41)
Holly Forrester (senior, Manhattan, Kan., Rock Creek HS) landed on the long jump podium with a leap of 17-6.25. Kasey Pelzer (freshman, Pleasantville) was seventh in 16-3.75 while Forrester added a fourth-place mark in the triple jump (36-7).
“Holly was disappointed in her triple jump,” Sturman said. “But she persevered to come back and get third in the long jump.”
In other field events, Cali Coffman (sophomore, Leawood, Kan., Blue Valley HS) was fourth in the pole vault (9-3) and Abby Marr (sophomore, Riceville) was sixth in the weight throw (50-1.75)
Gray led off the fifth-place 4×400-meter relay team which included Abbi Roerdink (freshman, Tiffin, Ohio, Hopewell-Loudon HS), Elsie Thoreson (freshman, Pella) and Hadyn Miller (freshman, Iowa Falls, Iowa Falls-Alden HS) and clocked in at 4:06.10.
Laken Bytnar (freshman, Bettendorf), Thoreson, Hollie Loper (sophomore, Richland, Pekin HS) and Mayhew were eighth in the distance medley relay (13:36.29). Bytnar was seventh in the mile (5:44.17) and Lauren Miller (sophomore, Dubuque) was eighth in the 800-meter run (2:30.16)
Gray, Pingel, Forrester, Stein, Mayhew and McMartin all earned all-conference accolades for top-three finishes.
