T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING - BCLUW senior Kenna Paxson fires out of the blocks at the start of the Class 1A girls’ 400-meter hurdles on Friday in Des Moines. Paxson placed 10th in a time of 1 minute, 8.83 seconds.

DES MOINES — Kenna Paxson watched the video board at Drake Stadium intently as the best 1A 400 hurdlers ran around the blue oval, hoping her personal best time of 1 minute, 8.83 seconds in the 400 meter hurdles would be enough to hold on for a medal.

In the end, the BCLUW senior finished three-tenths of a second short, eventually taking 10th place in the 400 hurdles and performing right around her pre-race seed of ninth.

Paxson was disappointed not to end up in the medals but took it in stride, saying she had a strong race.

“It felt good, I feel like I should have finished harder,” Paxson said. “But I feel like everyone feels like that when you’re done running.”

It was the first race of the day for the Comets’ strongest hurdler, as she was also the first leg of the girls’ 4×400 relay team.

Seeded 19th headed into the event, the group of Paxson, Mallori Jones, Miranda Jones and Fiona Speicher finished 22nd in the preliminaries, running a 4:22.17 and missing out on the finals.

Two events later the BCLUW boys’ 4×400 relay took the field to try and qualify for the finals. Lining up in lane 2 in the third heat, Cael Keller, Lane Hartwig, Henry Kaisand and Connor Lynch finished the event in 3:38.74, coming in 19th place and missing out on the finals.

BCLUW has one event Saturday — Lynch is taking part in the finals of the 800 run at 11:10 a.m.

North Tama had two events Friday — the distance medley girls’ final and the high jump with Shae Ewoldt.

In the first event of the day, the relay group of Lainey Willenbring, Zoey Rausch, Jules Breakenridge and Grace Lidgett finished 18th with a 4:32 flat after being seeded ninth and running in the second heat.

Ewoldt had qualified 17th but failed to clear 4 feet, 9 inches and did not place.

North Tama has two events Saturday — Jules Breakenridge in the 800 run finals at 10:30 a.m. and Lidgett in the 1,500 run at 2:45 p.m.