DES MOINES — Ashtyn Wheater launched the shot put, spun around and fell over the foul line as she watched the 8.8-pound sphere land.

And then she smiled.

The East Marshall junior knew her best throw was yet to come — and she was right.

After fouling on her second attempt of the finals, Wheater uncorked her best throw of the day on her last throw of the season to climb to fifth place in the Class 1A shot put competition at the Iowa Co-Ed State Track and Field Championships inside Drake Stadium.

Wheater was one of three area athletes to compete in the 1A shot put, all of them making the finals. BCLUW senior Grace Farnsworth finished eighth and GMG sophomore Arianna Pierce placed ninth, narrowly missing out on a medal.

The three local throwers qualified for the finals in seventh, eighth and ninth — respectively — and were sitting in those same positions until Wheater went nearly a foot farther with her final throw.

Wheater might have scratched on her fifth attempt, but it gave her a window into what might be in store for her in the final round.

“It was hard (to have scratched), but I knew I had more in me,” she said of her second attempt of the three-round finals. “It just shows you that you have it in you, you know you can do it, but you just have to let it happen.”

Sitting on a second-round toss of 36 feet, 11 1/5 inches as her best to that point, Wheater went 37-10 on her final heave to climb from seventh place to fifth.

“It means a lot because that was one of my goals this year was to make it to state and to place, and it means a lot to accomplish that goal,” she said. “I did a lot of throwing in practice and working on my technique to fix what I needed to fix.

“I’ve been working on staying back and using all the strength I’ve built up in the weight room and I finally stayed back more than I had, I had a lot more power and I was more aggressive at the finish.”

Making the finals guaranteed her an improvement from last year’s 13th-place result in the 2A shot put, but that last throw moved her up the podium.

“It was really exciting to have my dad put the medal on me, I liked that,” Wheater said of her father, Scott, East Marshall’s athletic director. “It was exciting to know the work I put in did pay off in the end.”

Farnsworth completed her third trip to state for the shot put with her first medal, coming in eighth after a second-round throw of 36-9 3/4 stood the test of time. The BCLUW senior and Iowa Central Community College volleyball recruit finished 19th at state as a freshman and 17th as a junior.

Pierce, who placed 16th in the 1A shot put as a freshman, pushed up the final standings in her second go-round with a personal-best throw of 36-7 3/4 on her first of three finals attempts — just two inches behind Farnsworth for the last spot on the podium.

Pekin senior Anna Hadley won the 1A shot put crown with ease, clearing 43-9 3/4 for the title.

Wheater’s fifth-place finish was the best of the day for area athletes. Mustang junior Cael Curphy clocked 52.99 seconds in placing 20th in the 400-meter dash, while fellow junior Eli Burns was 21st in the 1A long jump at 19-1 3/4.

BCLUW freshman Cambria Wayman scratched on her first attempt in the long jump and ended up in 22nd place with a leading leap of 15-1 1/2. Farnsworth and Wayman were the Comets’ only state qualifiers.

Pierce’s teammate Jay Bessman, a GMG senior, will compete in the boys’ 1A discus on Friday morning. They’re the Wolverines’ only qualifiers as well.

Trojans’ Thompson just misses a medal

Addie Thompson took more than 30 seconds off her best 3,000-meter time of the season, but not even that was enough.

The West Marshall senior finished in ninth place in the Class 2A race on Thursday at the Iowa Co-Ed State Track and Field Championships at Drake Stadium, missing out on a medal by one place.

Thompson clocked in at 10 minutes, 40.22 seconds — a new personal-best time by more than 11 seconds and a season-best by 32.39 seconds. Her ninth-place performance was the leader of the day for West Marshall.

Thompson ran as far back as 19th place during the race but gradually climbed back to medal contention. Mid-Prairie’s Brooklyn Stutzman did the same, finishing in 10:35.20 to collect the eighth and final medal spot.

Thompson took 14th in the same race a year ago in 10:51.29, which stood as her personal-best time until Thursday afternoon.

Sophomore teammate Dalaney Eldridge took 10th in the 2A long jump, clearing 16 feet, 2 1/2 inches to move up from her 13th seed. She also placed 14th in the 400 in 1:01.07, clocking her personal-best time by 25-hundredths of a second to move up from the 14th seed.

Both Thompson and Eldridge also ran on the Trojans’ 4×800-meter relay, which entered as the 23rd seed and left with 20th place after a season-best time of 10:11.42. Ella Randall, Thompson, Zoey Wignall and Eldridge finished 13 seconds faster than their qualifying time.

For the West Marshall boys, senior Kinnick Geers was 14th in the 100-meter preliminaries with a time of 11.33. The last finals qualifier ran 11.15.

Fellow Trojan senior Evan Siegert qualified for the 400 for the second year in a row but couldn’t match last season’s 18th-place finish, settling for 23rd with a time of 53.34.

West Marshall’s last remaining state qualifier is senior Ryder Gile, who competes in the high jump on Friday afternoon.