Aberdeen Central track and field athletes took advantage of their best weather conditions of the season to set meet records and personal bests marks during the Al Sahli Invitational Thursday at the Brownell Activities Complex.

The meet was scheduled for Saturday, but was moved to Thursday by Central athletic director Dawn Seiler because of the forecast of rain on the weekend.

“Coach Seiler is our MVP today for switching the meet to a Thursday,” said Central girls’ coach Jim Appl. “Without her none of this would have been possible.”

The Golden Eagles took advantage of the change in plans.

Aiden Heimann clocked a personal best time and meet record in winning the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in a time of 40:19.

“This is a great day today,” Heimann said. “We haven’t had a meet like this all year, yet.”

Heimman finished second in the 110-meter high hurdles. He pointed out the difference between the hurdles events.

“The 110s, with that one, it’s all about getting over the hurdles fast,” Heimann said. “The 300s is, after you get over the hurdle push really hard. That’s when most teams are going to relax, whereas we push really hard after we get over the hurdle.”

Heimann will have to readjust his season goal following his performance in the 300s.

“Originally, my goal was to break 41 by the end of season,” he said, “but now it’s to break 40 at this point.”

Central sophomore Ciara Frank was selected as the outstanding female athlete of the meet after winning the high jump and long jump, and also turning in solid performances in the sprints.

Frank cited lifting weights as a reason for her success.

“I went to off-season lifting over the winter and we lift twice a week at practice,” Frank said. “The training for practice is pretty good as well.”

Of course, having much better weather conditions on Thursday did not hurt, either.

“It’s a really nice day out,” Frank said. “Definitely better than Saturday would have been.”

Nobody had a bigger day than Central senior Josh Martin, who won three individual events, ran on a winning relay, broke a school record and was selected the outstanding male athlete.

Martin clocked a time of 1:56.72 in the 800-meter run to break the school record of 1:57.74 set by Guy Thornton in 1995. The time was two seconds faster than Martin’s previous best mark in race.

While weather was a part of the equation, Martin credited Central boys’ coach Greg Murley for added motivation.

“Murley said he was going to get us ice cream if I broke 1:57,” Martin said.

Martin continued to look at the scoreboard down the home stretch to see if he could break the record.

“During the last a hundred meters I was just looking at the clock,” Martin said, “just trying to beat it.”

Martin, who also won the 1,600 and set a meet record in the 3,200 on the day, said some off-season training has helped him out in the 800.

“Over the summer, I was trying to train for track,” Martin said. “I was lifting a little bit more, trying to build speed.”

Central’s Gracie Rife won both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes. The eighth-grader is making the most of her first season on the varsity.

When asked if she was a leader for the team, Rife responded, “No, I think our seniors do a really good job of that. Especially this being my first year moved up, I kind of needed somebody to follow.”

Rife said there is one major difference between running varsity and being on the middle school squad.

“The workouts are definitely a lot harder,” Rife said. “Middle school didn’t really work you as hard as up here.”

Other Central girls who won individual events included Sadie Struble in the 300 hurdles, Kiana Joerger in the 800, Alexis Ketterling in the 3,200 and Abby Berry who set a meet record in the javelin. Other Central boys who won individual events were Drew Salfrank who set a meet record in the 400, and Jacob Merxbauer in the triple jump.

In the end, the Golden Eagles had a lot of things that went well on the day and gave the coaches plenty of reason to be pleased.

“We’ve been preparing pretty well and doing the right things all this time,” Murley said. “You just hope that you kind of keep getting better and better.”

Appl said even kids who didn’t win had a lot of personal best efforts. He said the team is definitely heading in the right direction.

“The key thing is we are improving. It’s hard to improve when you don’t have the weather and we have the weather right now and that helps you to improve,” Appl said. “We’re getting there. We’re putting some pieces into place.”

Central will compete in Eureka on Tuesday before heading to Sioux Falls next weekend for the O’Gorman Invitational and the Howard Wood Dakota Relays.

To see complete meet results, click on the following link:

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/460300/results/all