GRUNDY CENTER — The North Tama girls’ track and field team emerged with four automatic qualifiers for next week’s state meet after finishing in first place at Thursday’s Class 1A state-qualifying meet at Grundy Center High School.

Redhawk sophomore Grace Lidgett gained three automatic bids by winning two individual races and anchoring a North Tama relay to first place. Lidgett won the 1,500-meter run in 5 minutes, 22.51 seconds, and the 3,000 in 12:02.00. She also anchored the Redhawks’ distance medley relay, teaming with Jadyn Rausch, Abby DeBoef and Julianna Breakenridge to win in a time of 4:29.60.

North Tama’s Rylee McLean won the discus with a distance of 111 feet, 1 inch.

BCLUW earned three bids behind senior Lizzie Garber, who won one race and anchored for two victorious Comet relay teams. Garber got first in the 100-meter hurdles in 15.56, and finished for the 4×400 (Kenna Paxson, Fiona Speicher, Miranda Jones, Garber; 4:19.29) and the shuttle hurdle relay (Paxson, Anistyn Borsch-Rash, Emma Averill, Garber; 1:11.03)

Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s two automatic state bids came from senior Belen Ellenberger, who won the 200 and the long jump. Ellenberger beat the 200 field to the finish line in 17.75, and she leaped ahead of the pack in the long jump with a distance of 16-7 1/2.

On the boys’ side, BCLUW sophomore Connor Lynch helped the Comets capture two meet titles. He won the 800 in a season-best time of 2:04.82, while the quartet of Henry Kaisand, Nick Pieper, Noah Gallentine and Lynch won the 4×800 in a season-best clocking of 8:32.22.

Only the state-qualifying meet champions in 1A earned automatic state meet berths, while the next best 14 times and distances await at-large berths. Official qualifying lists will be announced today.