The changing of the guard was in full swing Tuesday night at City High as the Little Hawks girls track team showed it will come out fighting this season despite the graduation of one of the most accomplished classes of this very high-powered program.

The names were different, but the results were much the same as the Little Hawks won the eight-team Steve Sherwood Relays by 50 points on the John Raffensperger track.

"It is a lot different," senior Maggie Leyen-decker said. "There's usually a bunch of star athletes out there. It's a lot different with them gone this year, but we have a bunch of girls who are good. We don't have any stars this year, but everybody's contributing. We've always had that, but with them in the spotlight it was hard to see that. Now other people get a chance to shine."

City won nine events and scored 179 points. Defending Class 3A state co-champion Mount Pleasant was second.

"To a certain extent we are still finding out who the leaders are," City High coach Terry Coleman said. "The good thing is that whereas last year we had a number of individuals who took on that leadership role, this year we have a large group of people who have taken that on."

The 4x200 relay team of Signe Mueller, Katie Krei, Kelly Krei and Kerry Kamber set a meet record with a time of 1:47.55, breaking the previous mark of 1:48.19 held by Mount Pleasant since 2003. City appeared to win all four legs of the race, and the third and fourth runners had huge leads with which to work.

The Little Hawks showed strength and depth in the sprint relays by also winning the sprint medley (Sydni Koenig, Mueller, Krista Wiegert, Caroline Mills) and the 4x100 (Page Gerard, Mueller, Kenzie Skay, Kamber). Kamber, a senior, also was second in the open 200, in a fine evening of work.

"Last year was sort of (Kamber's) breakout season," Coleman said. "She worked really hard in the off-season and is again ready to take that sprint group. She's really the only senior with state meet experience and has done a great job of leading workouts and keeping those kids together."

Kelsey Mims won the 400 meters in what looked like a breeze. She broke early, and by the time she rounded the final turn she was way out front.

Mims said she tried to stay away from pacing herself and just went out strong. She admitted to tightening up some in the last straightaway, but she easily hung on to her lead. Mims, a sophomore and a state qualifier a year ago, said this year would be different for her team, but she was confident in the younger runners.

"Last year the freshman class had a lot of people in it," Mims said. "We all know what we have to do to step up since we've all been through it our freshman year. We have a few really good freshmen coming up."

Leyendecker anchored the winning 4x400 relay and won the 800 with a well-timed surge to the front with 50 meters left. Leyendecker stayed right on the shoulder of Urbandale's Cassie Sokol through both laps before making her move.

"I finally learned this year how to pace myself," Leyendecker said. "That helped a bunch. Every other year I'd go out way too fast and just die. This season it came a lot easier."

Samantha Sidwell and Meredith Van Natta finished first and second in the 3,000 meters, and senior Ruhee Arora would have been second but ran in the junior varsity race and won it. Sidwell's time was 11:14.47.

Sophomore Sarah Anciaux, a state qualifier a year ago, was a double winner in the shot put and discus. Her shot put of 42-2 is one of the best in the state this season.

The Little Hawks finished second in the distance medley relay, a staple event of recent teams stocked with distance and middle distance stars. Sarah Ziegenhorn, another veteran, anchored and had a great one-on-one match to the end with Erin Penticoff, Cedar Rapids Xavier's state open 800 champion.

Ziegenhorn and Davenport Central's anchor were shoulder-to-shoulder to begin the final 800 meter leg. Ziegenhorn took over the lead, and said she was alone for about 300 meters.

"Then I could hear her coming behind me," Ziegenhorn said. "She's a pretty formidable opponent. I wanted to try to stay with her. She did catch me at the end, but it was close."

Penticoff was timed just .29 seconds ahead of Ziegenhorn and teammates Sydni Koenig, Janelle Aron and Patrice Jones.

Ziegenhorn said the adjustment to the new-look team is as much mental as physical.

"It just dawns on you that nobody is telling you that whatever you do is OK," she said. "It's scary because we could rely on them so much in the past four years because all of those seven girls that graduated were extremely strong runners.

"But a lot of people have really stepped up."

Coleman said he could see the team begin to develop in recent weeks.

"It is a different feel," Coleman said. "The team has embraced their team-ness, if that's a word. We've had so many new people come in over the last five or six weeks, we've really gotten to a point where you can say we're one of the top teams again. There are a lot of people who wouldn't have thought that last year, graduating all the folks we did. But they've worked their tails off.

"To actually come in and do it, I thought you could see it coming. But it's an awfully long season, and there's a whole bunch of things that can go wrong. But there were a whole bunch of things that went right tonight."

STEVE SHERWOOD RELAYS

Team scores -- 1. City High 179; 2. Mount Pleasant 129; 3. Burlington 71; 4. Urbandale 55; 5. Bettendorf 42; 6. Muscatine 39; 7. C.R. Xavier 37; 8. Davenport Central 32.

Winners, City high place-winners:

Long jump -- 1. Tiffany Hendricks (Burl) 17-2¾; 6. Kenzie Skay (C) 14-8½.

High jump -- 1. Lindsey Boldt (MP) 5-2½; 3. Krista Wiegert (C); 4. (tie) Lauren Jahns (Bett) and Tara Whiting (C) 4-10½.

Shot put -- 1. Sarah Anciaux (C) 42-2; 2. Corrie Wagner (C) 39-9½.

Discus -- 1. Anciaux (C) 114-6; 3. Wagner (C) 103-3.

3000 -- 1. Samantha Sidwell (C) 11:14.47; 2. Meredith Van Natta (C) 11:23.10.

4x800 -- 1. Mount Pleasant 10:01.33; 3. City High (Caroline Mills, Annie McKay, Emily Funk, Clair Anciaux) 10:09.13.

Shuttle hurdle relay -- 1. Burlington 1:03.66; 3. City High (Tara Whiting, Annie Fraga, Molly Sabers, Veronica Rydze) 1:07.87.

Distance medley -- 1. Cedar Rapids Xavier 4:24.96; 2. City High (Sydni Koenig, Janelle Aron, Patrice Jones, Sarah Ziegenhorn) 4:25.24.

100 -- 1. Mallory Henderson (MP) 13.37.

400 -- 1. Kelsey Mims (C) 1:01.46; 5. Krista Wiegert (C) 1:04.75.

4x200 -- 1. City High (Signe Mueller, Katie Krei, Kelly Krei, Kerry Kamber) 1:47.55.

100 hurdles -- 1. Kelsey Smith (Bur) 15.59; 4. (tie) Rydze (C) and Sara Graf (MP) 16.38.

800 -- 1. Maggie Leyendecker (C) 2:19.98; 6. Ziegenhorn (C) 2:28.79.

200 -- 1. Maddy Harmon (M) 27.17; 2. Kamber (C) 27.90; 3. Patrice Jones (C) 28.11.

400 hurdles -- 1. Lindsey Boldt (MP) 1:06.88; 2. Sabers (C) 1:08.96; 6. Laura Krumm (C) 1:16.27.

Sprint medley relay -- 1. City High (Koenig, Mueller, Wiegert, Caroline Mills) 1:55.59.

1,500 -- 1. Cassi Sokol (U) 5:01.48; 3. Sidwell (C) 5:13.39; 5. Annie McKay (C) 5:16.97.

4x100 -- 1. City High (Page Gerard, Mueller, Kenzie Skay, Kamber) 51.57.

4x400 -- 1. City High (Katie Krei, Janelle Aron, Kelly Krei, Leyendecker) 4:09.36.

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