Vandalia High School track and field sophomore thrower Hannah Brown has qualified for her second IHSA 1A Girls State Track Meet while junior sprinter Sophie Bowers has qualified for her first after their performances at Wednesday’s 1A Altamont Girls Sectional Meet. Brown met the Shot Put state qualifying standard of 35’ 5” with her very first preliminary round throw with a toss of 36’ 3” to punch her ticket to State and then completed her Finals throws and meet performance with a first place finish, besting the second place finisher by almost two feet. This will be Brown’s second state appearance after she qualified in 2023 and went in to the Prelims ranked 20th and finished in 13th place, just one spot out of making the Finals. Bowers will make her first appearance in the IHSA 1A State Track Meet after she finished in second place in the 100m Dash with a time :13.04 coming in behind only Kaitlyn Vahling of T-Town, a multiple time state qualifier who ran the #4 100m Dash time in 1A at the Sectional Meet. Bowers also narrowly missed qualifying for State in the 400m Dash as she ran a 1:02.50 in the event coming up just 0.63 seconds shy of the state qualifying standard with her fourth place finish.
The IHSA 1A State Track Prelims will be next Thursday, May 16 at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. The Shot Put prelims will begin at 11:00am while running events will begin at 12:00pm on Thursday. The top 12 preliminary round finishers in the shot put will advance to the Finals on Saturday at 10:00am. The top 9 preliminary round finishers in the 100m Dash will advance on to Saturday’s Finals.
