DES MOINES — Dyersville Beckman’s Evan Wulfekuhle had vignette vision.
Everything around him started turning blurry as he tried not to black out running the anchor leg of the sprint medley relay at the state track and field meet Saturday. He just saw one thing. The finish line.
Pekin ran an impressive 1:33.84 in the first heat of the Class 2A boys’ sprint medley relay at Drake Stadium. That was the time to beat, and even though Beckman and Wulfekuhle were in first in the third heat, he knew Pekin’s time was a good one. But he also had competition in his leg with Mediapolis.
“I just wanted it and I didn’t know if I was getting caught — Mediapolis, they had the second best 400 runner in the state,” Wulfekuhle said. “I really just pushed through everything.”
He fought the vignette vision and Beckman’s team of Riley Fangman, Joel Vaske, Mark Brown and Wulfekule finished first with a new 2A state meet record of 1:33.69.
“I just had to keep going until I finished,” Wulfekuhle said.
The same quartet came back later in the day and won the 400-meter relay with a time of 43 seconds flat.
Beckman avenged two second-place finishes from last year with the wins.
“You could definitely say that running angry was a big motivation for us,” Vaske said. “Last year, we were sick of second place. Second place in the 4x200 and the 4x100.
“We came out this morning, sprint medley — a lot of adrenaline going. We’re sick of second places. Just determination. You could tell people were putting their heads down and doing what they had to do.”
This was Brown’s third first-place finish of the weekend. The senior also won the 400-meter hurdles on Friday.
“This is even better,” Brown said. “It’s awesome to win as a really and as a time. This feels way better, you have someone to celebrate with.”
Beckman finished in third place with 38 team points. Pekin was first with 72 points and Mid-Prairie was second with 44 points.
West Liberty’s Michael Hartman went down in the first leg of the 800-meter relay on Friday. It was his first event at the state track and field meet, and that pretty much took West Liberty out of the team-race contention.
Even though, it still took 13th with 19 team points, thanks to 18 points from Tanner Iske.
Iske finished the 100-meter dash in 10.58, a new 2A boys’ 100-meter record.
“It feels good to keep that fastest kid in the state title intact,” Iske said. “And it feels good knowing I could drop my time even more and get a state record.”
Iske couldn’t complete the sprint sweep in the 200, but he did finish second with a time of 22.07.
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