Chadderdon, along with Sarah Trowbridge, Priscilla Vergara and Mia Barajas, competed in the Class 4A girls distance medley relay during day two of the Iowa Co-Ed State Track and Field Championships at Drake Stadium, the first state meet for all four girls.

The relay team entered seeded 21st with a time of 4 minutes, 27.76 seconds, but they dropped back a spot by finishing in 22nd with a 4:29.16. Chadderdon said she wasn’t focused so much on the placing, but more the experience of being a state competitor.

“I’d be lying if I said it went how I wanted it to, but I am really proud of what I’ve done here and I hope that other people can look at what I’ve done here and it motivates them to do the same,” she said.

Both Trowbridge and Chadderdon had run on the Blue Oval before in the Drake Relays, but Trowbridge said this was a different experience entirely.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“I think that this was more intense, I was a little more nervous for this. It seems like there’s a bigger crowd here, it actually seems scarier,” Trowbridge said of running in front of the 15,000-person crowd.

Chadderdon has been through a lot in her time playing and competing for Marshalltown, but through it all she said she feels like she has accomplished something by ending her career at the state meet.

“If I would have gone out at districts that would have been awful. This was much better, I’m glad it was here,” she said. “Being a four-sport athlete for four years now, coming in all I really needed was to be proud of myself. I think I am I think I accomplished that, and I am proud of these girls and I hope they are proud of themselves too.”

Barajas said it won’t be the same next year without Chadderdon on the team next year.

“She is such a great mentor, I am so glad we made it with her,” she said.

Trowbridge has been in the same sprinting rooms with Chadderdon for her entire career, and she said much of her success now and in the future is because of her guidance.

“It’s going to be sad having her leave because both times I’ve been to Drake and now at state she was in those relays,” Trowbridge said. “I couldn’t ask for a better teammate, I love having her there.”

There is still one Bobcat race to be run, as the shuttle hurdle relay team will compete in a timed final today after having their preliminary race on Thursday postponed due to weather.