This year provided a very interesting state track meet for Fatima, which fielded three athletes in three events, with two of them earning All-State medals on Saturday.

With tornado damage to Jefferson City the Class 3/4/5 state meet was split into three individual meets in three different locations, with all events run off in one day. Fatima competed in the Class 3 meet held at Mizzou.

The day started as the Lady Comets entered the 4x800 relay as the eighth seed. Junior, Kailey Woody led off in her first appearance as a state track competitor. She got off to a very quick first 200m before settling into her pace to handoff in sixth place to 4x800 veteran senior Katelyn Vanderfeltz, in her fourth straight appearance in the 3200m relay. 

“Katelyn ran a strong second leg handing off in third place to junior Sierra Sankey,” said Coach Marc Bridges.

This was Sankey’s second state appearance in the 4x800. She made a late surge to push into second place as she handed off to Alyssa Struemph, a very seasoned, seven-time All-State track athlete. Struemph ran a quick 2:27 split to secure third place in 10:07.

“I couldn’t have asked more from the 4x800 girls,”” said Bridges. “Each of them ran their best splits of the year to make a trip to the podium.”

In their final event of the day for the Lady Comets, juniors Alexis Fischer and Kendall Haller competed in the 3200m run. “The girls got out to a relatively fast but controlled first lap with Fischer in third and Haller in 12th,” Bridges noted, adding that lap two saw Fischer move into second and Haller push into seventh. 

On lap three, both girls held their position and the fourth lap saw little change as Fischer remained in second while Haller slipped one spot into eighth place. On the fifth lap, Fischer held onto second and Haller bounced back into seventh. Haller made a push into fifth place on the next lap while Fischer slipped to seventh. The next-to-last lap ended with the same positions, and in the last 400 meters, Haller held off a late surge from the field to claim fifth as Fischer slipped to ninth. 

“I’m proud of the way Kendall and Alexis competed,” said Bridges. “It’s really hard to compete at a high level three weeks in a row in the 3200m but the girls pushed themselves as best as they could.”

Haller ran a time of 12:12.62, and Fischer just missed the top-8 cutoff for All-State with a time of 12:34.36.

Fatima’s sprinters in the 4x200m relay of Alexandra Kliethermes, Bridgette Veit, Hannah Moeller, and Jordan Pope finished 14th in a time of 1:50.

“The girls  started their run to state three weeks ago at districts were we entered with a season-best time of 1:54.25,” said Bridges. “We changed the order, worked on handoffs, and emerged as district champs with a new best time of 1:51.60.” 

At sectionals the girls bumped things up a notch to advance to state with yet another season-best time of 1:51.06. 

“On Saturday at state, the girls stepped things up for one last run posting their final time of the year with 1:50.26, a four-second drop in time over three meets,” said Bridges. “I couldn’t ask for more than that.  I’m proud of how our sprinters kept focus and worked hard to run at state.”