By Tavian Noard
The Iowa City Regina track team has been a dominant force this year, winning all but two of its meets so far.
The Runnin’ Regals have been very successful, but one relay team specifically has been nearly unstoppable. Regina’s distance medley team, consisting of Kevin Arnold, Jack Verducci, Sean Sullivan and Daniel Bonthius, won all of its races and earned the privilege to run at one of Iowa’s biggest track meets: Drake Relays.
With their eyes on the school record, on April 23 the distance medley team members truly ran like Regals. Arnold and Verducci opened up by both running their 200 meters, handing off to Sullivan who ran the 400 meter run, and ending with Daniel Bonthius running the 800.
After the race, the boys walked away with a ninth place finish at the Drake Relays, a new school record, and national recognition. The previous school record for the distance medley team was three minutes, 37 seconds. With Bonthius running a very strong one-minute, 54-second, 800 meter run, the Regals ended up with a three-minute, 35-second finish.
The Regals also ranked 44th among all schools in the country, according to dyestat.com. Sullivan, a senior, commented on how team members feel about their performance. “It feels great, because we have been working pretty hard and you can see that everyone on the medley is getting better. It goes to show that hard work pays off.”
Now that the Regal medley team has reached a mid-season goal, Sullivan said, “Our goal is to improve our time and make the elite 43 in the nation.”
The Regals are looking forward to their conference and district meets, and hope to qualify for state in the weeks upcoming.
