GMG sophomore Arianna Pierce lets go of her first attempt in the Class 1A girls’ shot put finals on Thursday, May 21, at the state track meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. Pierce placed ninth. PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

DES MOINES — Three area athletes competed in the Class 1A girls shot put competition at the Iowa Co-Ed State Track and Field Championships inside Drake Stadium last week, all of them making the finals.

East Marshall junior Ashtyn Wheater finished fifth, BCLUW senior Grace Farnsworth eighth and GMG sophomore Arianna Pierce placed ninth – narrowly missing out on a medal – on Thursday morning, May 21.

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. She 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,” Wheater 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.

Arianna Pierce pictured in Des Moines last week atop Drake Stadium’s iconic bronze statue of Spike, the university’s bulldog mascot. This was Pierce’s second appearance in as many years at the state championships. PHOTO COURTESY GMG SCHOOLS/FACEBOOK

“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.