MITCHELL – Aberdeen Central collected a dozen first and second place finishes during the Corn Palace Relays track and field meet on Saturday.

The Golden Eagles won two events on both the boys’ and girls’ side, and had four runner-up finishes in both divisions as well.

“It was a good day for our kids,” said Central boys’ coach Greg Murley. “It’s good to compete.”

And that’s what the Eagles did as Murley pointed out the effort of Colby Dauwen, who anchored a pair of second-place relay squads.

“Coming down to the anchor leg they were a little bit behind,” Murley said. “They were in third place. I truly believe that Colby might bite someone’s ear off to beat them. That kid’s a competitor.”

Dauwen also won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles.

David Van Veen won the 800-meter run in a time of 2:02.40, and also ran a strong leg on the 3,200-meter relay team.

“He ran a 2:01 opening leg on our 4X8,” Murley said, “so he ran two really good halves today.”

Other runner-up finishes went to Tyler Bain in the high jump and Grant Fritz in the triple jump.

Avery Ligon placed fifth in the 100-meter dash and ran on three relay squads for Central. Murley noted the sprinters have been working to overcome a few injuries.

“Avery has kind of been a rock star for us over there,” Murley said.

Murley also pointed out the efforts of Tate DeVries, who ran a 4:41.17 in the 1,600-meter run and also placed in the 3,200-meter run.

“It’s hard to pass up talking about Tate DeVries,” Murley said. “He ran a 4:41. That’s a 4:41 mile as an eighth-grader. That’s a pretty good time.”

The Central girls had a big day in the field events as Taryn Hermansen won the shot put and Ciara Frank won the high jump with teammate Madison Hochstetter third.

Taryn Nieman was third in the discus, Frank was second and Lucy Fritz fourth in the long jump, and Central grabbed four of the top five places in the pole vault with Breckan Santjer second, Jaidyn Forseth third, Fritz fourth, and Kiana Joerger fifth.

“We have a lot of depth in the field events,” said Central girls’ coach Jim Appl.

The Eagles scored major points in almost all of them.

“Our jumping events and throwing events, we placed in all of those,” Appl said.

The Eagles were also solid on the track as Gracie Rife was second in the 100-meter dash and fifth in the 200, and teammate Keyana Stillman was eighth in the 100 and third in the 200. Both also ran on relay teams that finished second and third.

“Grace had a nice day along with our little eighth-grader Stillman,” Appl said. “Those two really had a nice day. They both ran on both relays.”

And those relays clocked impressive times as Central finished second in the 800-meter relay and third in the 400-meter relay.

“Our 4×1 and 4X2 really shaved some time off,” Appl said. “We ran our fastest 4X2 time of the year today (1:46.65) and that was faster than we ran all of last year, so that’s a credit to those kids.”

Appl was pleased with what he saw out of his athletes during the meet.

“The kids are competing hard,” Appl said. “We’re improving.”

Faulkton had several athletes compete at the meet. Spencer Melius won the javelin, while in the girls’ division Savana Hayes was third in the Class B shot put and sixth in the discus, and Kelli Stoecker was second in the Class B triple jump and fourth in the long jump.

Central is back in action on Monday at a meet in Brookings that was moved up a day because of forecasted rain on Tuesday.

To see complete meet results, click on the following link:

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/543143/results/all