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Battle Mountain’s Lindsey Kiehl leads 800-meter runners with eighth-place finish

Eagle Valley's Jake Drever takes 10th and Battle Mountain's Will Brunner places 14th in boys race

Battle Mountain's Lindsey Kiehl comes through the first lap of the 4A girls 800-meter run on Friday in Lakewood.
Ryan Sederquist/Vail Daily

Battle Mountain’s Lindsey Kiehl was the lone local individual podium finisher on the track on Friday during the second day of the state meet at Jeffco Stadium in Lakewood. The junior took eighth in the 800-meter run with a time of 2 minutes, 15.97 seconds.

“I didn’t PR or anything, but I got to race at state and my goal was to podium and I did that, so that was fun,” said Kiehl, whose best time is 2:15.60. Eventual winner Madison Shults, one of nine Niwot athletes in the final, paced the field through 400 in 1:03.67. Kiehl filed through in sixth, two seconds back.

“My coach always says to work the third 200 and I tried to focus on that,” Kiehl said. “And I think I did make up a little space and then I tried to really kick on the homestretch.”



Shults came home to defend her title in 2:08.90 and her teammate Anna Prok and Silver Creek’s Cloe Ruth would close hard to slide in front of Kiehl, who for the most part felt like she ran as solid of a race as she could’ve asked for.

“I mean, I wanted to be a little farther up; then I could’ve stayed with the pack a little bit more. I kind of like hesitated a little at the beginning, but other than that, it was good,” she said. The Swiss Army knife of the girls team, Kiehl brought the 4-by-400 relay from fifth to third in the prelim to end the day. On Saturday, she’ll run the relay again, as well as the 1600-meter run, an event she ran 5:02 in at a meet in New York this March. She figures she’ll probably at least need to be in the 5:05 neighborhood to be on that podium.

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“I’m looking to get back towards that time,” she said of her early-season mark. “I’m looking to podium but I’m just going out there to have fun.”

Lake County’s Jace Peters ran 1:56 to place second in the 2A 800-meters.
Ryan Sederquist/Vail Daily

Eagle Valley’s Jake Drever and Battle Mountain’s Will Brunner competed in a fast 4A boys 800, won by Mead’s once-in-a-generation talent Tavon Underwood.

“He’s a stud,” Brunner said of Underwood, who set a 4A state meet record of 20.99 in the 200 on Thursday and has the No. 6 time in the nation in the 400-meters (46.60). After winning Friday’s two-lapper in 1:51.97 — dropping a 55.14 negative split-second lap — the Kansas State recruit is one-third of the way to one of the most absurd triples in track and field history: the 200, 400 and 800.

After closing the final two laps of Thursday’s 3200-meter race in 2:04 — a pretty respectable stand-alone 800 — to win his first state title, Brunner said his legs were a little lifeless Friday morning.

“Not super happy with it,” he said of his 1:57.58 14th-place finish. “It wasn’t my perfect run; I couldn’t close like I wanted to. But, I think it happens and you learn from it and move on.”

Underwood and Grand Junction Central’s Shalom Trowbridge took the field out in 56.84 seconds.

“Every guy hung on in that first lap, so it wasn’t like you had room to run on the inside,” said Drever, who came through in 57.54 and was right by Summit’s Dominykas Remeikis.

Drever was full-gas the entire second lap, but with four of the top-nine athletes running negative splits, including Remeikis, who would finish fourth, the Devils senior’s 1:56.08 fell just two-hundredths of a second off the podium.

“I’m happy about my performance, but I’m really sad that I got out-kicked at the line for the podium finish,” Drever said. “But I still have three more total races and two more chances.”

Brunner is the top seed in Saturday’s 1600, where he’ll join Drever and Porter Middaugh, seeded fourth.

“You learn more when you lose and I think you’re way more motivated to win when you lose,” Brunner said. “So I want to race like I’ve never won tomorrow and that’s the best plan. I got to keep this one fresh in the mind for tomorrow.”

Eagle Valley’s Jake Drever rounds the corner on the second lap of the 800-meter run on Friday at Jeffco Stadium in Lakewood.
Ryan Sederquist/Vail Daily


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