Raylee Stenzel finishes storied high school career at state
Mountain Grove’s Raylee Stenzel completes her high school career with a pair of All-State medal performances at the Class 3 State Championships held in Jefferson City. She was fifth in the 400 meters and sixth in the 200 meters.
A storied high school career came to an end in the recent Class 3 State Championships track and field meet held in Jefferson City.
Mountain Grove’s Raylee Stenzel finished off her career with two All-State medals for the Lady Panthers.
Stenzel first finished fourth in the preliminaries in the 400 meters with a time of 58.65 seconds, which just missed breaking Samantha Zid’s school record time of 58.48 seconds.
In the finals one day later, Stenzel placed fifth with an All-State time of 59.88 seconds.
Then in her sixth total race in two days, she capped off her high school career with a personal best time in the 200 meters at 25.96 seconds.
This earned her a sixth place finish at state was the fourth fastest time in school history, which is just shy of the third best time of 25.95 seconds ran by Ashlynn Rogers who took fourth in state in 2014.
In the relay races, Stenzel teamed with Savannah Hellbusch, Santana Schwertfeger and Lilly Hines to take 10th in preliminaries with a time of 51.28 seconds. This was just shy of their seasonal best time of 50.9 seconds.
The same runners were also 11th in the 4x200 with a time of 1:48.97.
The 4x800-meter relay team of Nyelli Soto, Kynli Blackwell, Hadley Driskill and Keena Roth had their second best effort of the year as they averaged just under 2:40 per leg. They were ninth place with a time of 10:38.70.
In the 1,600 meters, Roth had a personal best time of 5:42.52, which moves her to No. 7 in school history, passing Heather Relyea’s 5:47 in 1987.
Junior Aden Estep didn’t earn a medal, but his 10th place time of 22.22 seconds in the 200 meters set a new school record. He passed Justin Satterfield’s mark of 22.27 seconds from 2010 that was also run at state and gave Justin a fifth place medal that season.
The 4x200-meter relay team of Beau Nelson, Cooper Hoerning, JP Dickey and Estep ran a seasonal beset time of 1:31.42 n the 4x200. That was good for just 12th place overall, though it is the No. 2 time in school history, just a half second off the 2009 record of 1:30.96 set by Tavish Lawson, Sean Rutz, Evan Williams and Satterfield.
The 4x800-meter relay team of Hunter Bartlett, Max Guillians, Aydon Barbe and Skyler Oliphant had their second best effort of the season. Their 8:43.71 gave them 14th place overall at state.
In the pole vault, Nelson cleared 11’10.25”, but was unable to clear 12’4”. He finishes his career as the No. 3 vaulter in school history when he earlier cleared 13’.