DeMotte Christian Knights

DeMotte Christian's girls Sprint Medley Relay team are State Champions as they set a new State Meet record on Saturday in Terre Haute. They took over eight seconds off their season best to claim the State Championship. DeMotte Christian's Sprint Medley Relay team, consisting of Kallie Winter (8th), Elsie Burlingham (7th), Marin Kingma (7th), and Bethany Mudde (7th), was one of four events qualify for the Indiana Middle School State Championships. Bethany Mudde qualified individually in the 400m Dash and the high jump and eighth grader Ruby Davis qualified in the pole vault. The day started with Ruby and Bethany competing in their field events, pole vault and high jump respectively, at 8am central time down in Terre Haute on Indiana State's Gibson Track & Field Complex. The DeMotte Christian families split their attention, cheering on both girls as they cleared their opening heights. Ruby Davis eventually earned 10th place with a vault of 8'0" after just missing at 8'6", which would have been her best of the year and improve her school record of 8'3". Bethany Mudde was in a five-way tie for 4th after clearing 4'8" on high jump. The meet judges and coaches agreed that a jump-off at 4'9" would be used to break the tie. Bethany seized the opportunity and cleared 4'9" on her first attempt, securing her 4th place finish. Shortly after that, DeMotte Christian's SMR team kicked off the running events. The Sprint Medley Relay consists of the first two relay runners each running 100m, the third runner running 200m, and the anchor running 400m. Coming into the meet, the Knights only had one opportunity to get a qualifying time in for the event, which they completed in 2:05.70, beating the school record from 1985 by .03 seconds. This was good enough to seed DeMotte Christian in seventh going into Saturday's State Championships. Kallie Winter started off the race with a great 100 and perfectly handed off to Elsie Burlingham for her 100. After Elsie's 100, the Knights were right in the thick of the competition. Burlingham handed off to Kingma and she turned in a great 200 to put the Knights in a virtual tie with first-seeded Southridge Middle School with each school's 400m runner remaining. Bethany Mudde took the handoff and got a quick 5 meter lead on the final lap, which she carried through the first 200 meters of the race, at which point, another runner passed Mudde. That lead didn't last for long as Mudde retook the lead about 20 meters later. As she turned for the last 100, Mudde continued to spread the gap and crossed the finish line first, earning the State Championship with a record time of 1:57.55, more than 8 seconds better than their previous mark and record. DeMotte Christian learned on Monday that their Championship time actually set the record not only for DeMotte Christian, but the Indiana State Middle School Championships Meet record as well! Even with a State Meet record on the books in the 800 Sprint Medley Relay, Bethany Mudde's day wasn't done. A couple hours later, Mudde was back on the track to compete in the 400m finals. In the third heat of a four-heat race, Mudde once again crossed the finish line first, which was good for 6th place in the state, Mudde's third medal of the day at the State Championships. The State Meet capped off a very successful season for the MS Knights, specifically the girls, who broke four school records, won the Illiana Invite by 113 points, and won back-to-back Conference Championships. A special thank you to Anne Kingma for the great photographs of the meet!