The official Start List for Iowa High School events at the upcoming Drake Relays is expected to be released later today. A snafu in sending the unofficial list of qualifiers to coaches at 1 p.m. Friday made it to some, but not all, Iowa high school track & field coaches. Greene County head coaches Chad Morton and Derek Merk did not receive the unofficial list until several hours after the scheduled time yesterday. That pushed back the public release of the Start List to sometime today. Coaches make scratches before the list is released to the public. Over the years, athletes with performances good enough to qualify for Drake have been taken off the qualifying list due to schedule conflicts, injury, illness, ineligibility, or other reasons.

Greene County is hoping to qualify multiple boys’ and girls’ events to qualify for the prestigious one-class non-scoring track & field meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines April 25-26-27.

Junior Carter Morton is an automatic qualifier for Drake in the high jump with a 6′ 8″ clearance. Fifteen jumpers cleared the automatic standard of 6′ 6″. Twenty-four will make the Drake Relays field not only in the high jump, but in all field events.

The Rams look to be secure in the 4 x 100 meter relay with 96 quartets being accepted. The foursome of Tyler Teeples, Morton, Brent Riley, and Colby Kafer, all juniors, ranked 30th on the QuikStats reporting website on Friday in 44.64 seconds. Junior Tyler Miller stood at 23rd in the shot put Friday with a toss of 52′ 3″. Kafer was 28th in the long jump at 21′ 3-1/2″.

The Greene County girls were 83rd in a field of 96 on Friday in the 4 x 100 in :52.71 with senior Melanie Doran, junior Maddy Sigler, sophomore Makala Kafer, and sophomore Brianna Osterson. Osterson sat in 20th in the long jump at 17′ 3″, and sophomore Brooklyn Olson was 25th in the discus throw at 122′ 9″.