After a sluggish start to a track season marred by canceled meets,  the Kennedy girls broke out Tuesday night by winning the Linn-Mar Lion Relays by  a decisive margin over the host team.

The Cougars claimed five individual champs along with two relay winners and also picked up a pair of runner-up relay finishes.  They topped the eight-team field with 150  points.

Linn-Mar came in second with 121 points thanks to three relay  victories. In two of their winning events, the distance medley and the  sprint medley, the Lions set meet records.

“It took awhile, but we’re  finally putting the pieces together,” Kennedy Coach Mark Jensen said following the four-hour meet. “We’re fining out who wants to compete and who fits  in where.

“Our team tonight was a lot more representative than the team that finished sixth in the J-Hawk Relays two weeks ago.”

Jensen said  this year’s poor weather has hampered the team’s progress. Tuesday’s races marked only the fourth outdoor meet to be run; three others were called off.

“We’ve taken small steps,” Jensen said, “but we’re getting  there.”

Senior Breyana Cooper scored Kennedy’s first points by winning the long jump, and she later ran legs on the runner-up sprint and 4x100 relays.

In the meet’s opening race, Cougar junior Alyssa Averhoff put on a furious sprint in the last 200 meters to overtake junior rival Shannon Gorman of Washington in the 3000 meter run.

“Shannon had led for two  laps,” Averhoff said. “She always has a good finish and (at) 200 meters I just decided to go for it.”

She ended up topping her best time of the season by 23 seconds.

Fellow Kennedy distance specialist Kathia Wampole had another strong performance by winning the 800 meter run and running the first leg of the victorious 4x800 meter relay.

“The 800, that’s my baby,”  said the senior Wampole, who will run track and cross country next year at  Bradley University. She’s hoping her 2:20.98 time puts her in the field  at the upcoming Drake
Relays. She also wants to qualify in the 1500.

Other Kennedy winners included freshman Amari Walter in the 200 meter dash and hurdler supreme Marisa Estelle in the 100 meter hurdles. Estelle also anchored the winning shuttle hurdle relay.

“Everything is really coming into shape for our whole team,” the senior Estelle said. “We’ve got a complete team with some really fast people in a lot of events.”

While both Kennedy and Linn-Mar fared well at the meet, it  also marked a coming out party of sorts for Marion sophomore Abby Kolarik. She came in second by an eyelash to Kennedy’s Waller in the 200 meter dash after earlier smoking the field in the 400 meter dash.

Kolarik, who ranks near the top among state sprinters in Class 3A, won the longer race by more than two seconds in a field full of Class 4A  runners.

“This the first year I’ve run the 400,” she said. “And it’s the first time I’ve run against girls from this many big schools. “So it’s good for my confidence. And it was good to have runners that pushed me.  It’ll help me going into districts.”