WAUKEE — The Marshalltown boys’ track and field team left Waukee Northwest High School with three automatic state-qualifying berths.

By lunchtime Friday, the Bobcats had doubled that.

Marshalltown will send six entrants to the Iowa Co-Ed State Track and Field Championships next week after their performances at Thursday night’s qualifier at Waukee Northwest, highlighted by Preston Johnson’s 3-for-3 achievement.

Johnson was a part of all three automatic qualifiers for the Bobcats, winning the 1,600- and 3,200-meter races and anchoring the distance medley relay team to a runner-up finish.

The distance medley relay foursome of Declan Greene, Evan Anderson, Aiden Smitherman and Johnson assembled together for the first time this spring and set a new season-best time of 3 minutes, 32.02 seconds. Ankeny Centennial edged out Marshalltown, running 3:31.83 to win Thursday’s meet, but the Bobcats advanced automatically just the same.

“Overall great night,” said MHS head coach Bob Gilbertson. “The guys performed very well and had some great season bests and all-time Bobcat marks. Super proud of the effort and we were rewarded with some state berths.”

The distance medley relay is the team’s top qualifier for state, standing fifth going into next week’s state meet.

Johnson, with winning times of 9:26.94 in the 3,200 and 4:19.39 in the 1,600, is seeded sixth and seventh in respective races for state.

“He was in control of his races throughout and was well within himself,” Gilbertson said. “It was good to see him racing with confidence.”

Carter Nunn delivered a clutch performance for the ages, too, coming through in back-to-back events and getting both to state. The senior started his night with a third-place finish in the 3,200 that qualified for state at-large, clocking 9:46.08 for the 23rd spot in the field of 24. The 24th qualifier — Ian Smith of Ankeny Centennial — nearly caught Nunn at the finish line and gained the final at-large spot at 9:46.67.

Nunn followed that up by anchoring the Bobcats’ next race — the 4×800 relay — to a fifth-place finish and the 21st-fastest qualifying time of 8:20.05. It was a 22-second season-best clocking for the Bobcat quartet of Myles Goldman, Isacc Ceniceros, Kade Randall and Nunn — and it had a three-and-a-half second cushion ahead of the 24th and final qualifying time.

“He had a tremendous double in a very short period of time,” Gilbertson said. “He could barely walk afterwards.”

Smitherman is getting to state as a solo act as well despite finishing sixth in the state-qualifying meet in the 400 hurdles. His personal-best time of 56.46 earned him the 22nd spot out of 24 qualifiers for state just the same.

“He ran with a lot of guys and competed extremely well,” Gilbertson said. “He has done this his entire time in our program.”

For all those narrow victories, the Bobcats suffered some slim defeats as well. Anderson finished third in the 200 with a time of 22.87, while the runner in front of him on Thursday — Waukee Northwest’s Griffin Ludwig — qualified for state in the 24th spot at 22.78.

That miniscule margin was relatable for Jaxson Hinkle, who placed fifth in the shot put with a season-best toss of 50 feet, 1 1/4 inches. The 24th qualifier for state cleared 50-2 — just three-fourths of an inch ahead of Hinkle’s distance.

“His ankle was not yet 100 percent after severly spraining it at Mason City a few weeks ago,” Gilbertson said. “He was extremely close in both throws.”

The sprint medley team of Fernando Garcia, Zak Wilder, Anderson and Smitherman scored fourth place in Thursday’s meet in 1:35.70 — the second-fastest in school history — while the final qualifying time settled in at 1:35.05.

In all, Marshalltown registered 14 personal- or season-best times during Thursday’s meet — including PRs from Carson Daters in the 110 high hurdles (18.68); Elicha Mboungou in the 200 (23.83); Carson Wright (54.46) and Larrs Schoenfelder (54.98) in the 400; Michael Downs (2:08.02) and Costin Piscitelli (2:18.64) in the 800; and Jonathan Schaeffer in the shot put (44-1 1/2) and the discus (101-7).

Kieron Sharp ran a season-best in the 100 (12.52), as did the 4×100 foursome of Garcia, Jamison Niehouse, Smitherman and Anderson (45.23).

Bobcat girls denied state

The Marshalltown girls’ track and field team was left on the outside looking as the Bobcats came up empty after Thursday night’s state-qualifying meet and Friday’s qualifier lists were published.

Running in a daunting district, the Bobcats posted a handful of personal- and season-best times to come away with the time drops ideal for this time of the year.

“The girls competed hard,” said MHS head coach Chad Pietig. “We talked about ‘no regrets’ when your night of competition was over. For the most part, I think the girls can say that.”

The top finish for Marshalltown came in the form of fifth-place results for a trio of relays: the sprint medley, the distance medley and the 4×800-meter relay.

The Bobcats’ sprint medley foursome of Erandy Ibarra Madrigal, Leia Hernandez, Grace Christensen and Bailey Garland tallied a season-best time of 1 minute, 56.66 seconds — a six-second drop. The distance medley quartet of Flolangel Dessin, Faith Sommerlot, Emerson Mason and Mattea Wright took fifth in a season-best 5:00.85, and the 4×800 team of Drea Ceren, Mallory Meyeraan, Anessa Morrison and Kendall Brummel clocked in at 11:01.11.

Christensen collected sixth in the 100-meter dash in 13.32 but was shy of qualifying for state again as the cutoff time of 13.05 was out of reach on this day. The 4×200 team of Garland, Madrigal, Shailynn Sadie and Christensen collected fith in 1:53.15, and the shuttle hurdle relay team of Geneva Spitzli, Chloe Hoogensen, Brummel and Lorelai Villareal scored a season-best time of 1:14.50 — the school’s best time in the last five years.

Spitzli, Hoogensen and Villareal all had lifetime-best splits in the shuttle hurdle relay, but the team missed out on state qualification by two seconds.

The Bobcats also took seventh in both the 4×100 and 4×400 relays to end the night.

Garland clocked a personal-best 27.54 in the 200 to take ninth, while Dessin’s 30.11 was a personal best good for 13th.

Adele Beek took 10th in the 400 with a personal-best 1:11.19, and Anela Villareal was 11th in the high jump with a new PR of 4 feet, 8 inches.

“The competitor in me obviously wants to qualify for state and wants one more week of training and racing, but the realistic person in me acknoledges that we took 25 girls to the state-qualifier meet and only four of them were upperclassmen,” Pietig said. “That is a lot of good experience for a young team and leaves me optimistic about what we can do in the future. So it is a mixture of disappointment that we didn’t qualify and that it is over, but excitement about what possibilities lie ahead for next season.”