DES MOINES — Freshman Mac Svalstad’s tour de force season continued last weekend in Des Moines as he helped the Solon boys to 27 points and an 8th place team finish. Svalstad threw down an incredible 1:52.67 800 meter split running solo in the slowest heat to bring home gold in the 1600 meter medley relay Friday. The win pinned a rare loss on senior Western Dubuque star Quentin Nauman, the fastest high school 800 runner in Iowa history. Senior Eli Kampman, sophomore Paxton Holtkamp and junior Jackson Burk joined the freshman giving him the baton in first place with nothing but open track ahead.
“Sitting there watching the second and thirds heats compete was really fun but stressful. I didn’t think we had won at first, but I turned and saw my teammates celebrating and I looked at the scoreboard, saw we had won, It was just unreal,” Svalstad said with a smile.
Junior Kaden Hoeper opened the Spartans scoring Thursday with a personal best 6-5 clearance in high jump. Hoeper tied three others at the 3rd best height but placed 6th factoring in misses. Freshman Easton Shipley also competed and finished 10th with a 6-1 clearance. Senior Einar Stecher ran Thursday missing a state medal by a heartbreaking .001 placing 9th on a photo finish in the 100 meter prelims (11.092).
Svalstad capped Thursday’s scoring in his first event placing 6th in the 400 meters in 49.44.
After winning the 1600 medley Friday, Svalstad stepped onto the track with more pressure in his next event to close out the evening. With his teammates each having run multiple races Friday afternoon, Svalstad got the baton needing a huge effort to get Solon into Saturday’s 4×400 meter final. He produced a season best split of 48.5 to claim the 8th and final qualifying spot by .19.
“It was really fun. I only had one race that day before the prelims and I knew those guys were tired having run the medley and then the 4×200 relay. They basically had no down time,” Svalstad said. “It felt really good to make the guys happy and slip into that last spot and give them a chance to compete on Saturday.”
Saturday, Svalstad went to work in one of the best 3A 800 meter fields ever assembled. The freshman refused to be intimidated by two of the best middle distance runners in Iowa history. Nauman, the only Iowa high schooler to break 1:50.0 and Pella senior Canaan Dunham.
“I knew they’d want to take it out slow (as both would compete later in the 1600 meter run), so I took the lead. I knew they would come around sometime, just didn’t know when. I tried to stay with them, but they’re just so talented and have the experience, I couldn’t stay with them.”
Dunham got his first individual state title (1:50.61) in a massive upset over Nauman (1.51:22) and Svalstad rallied for third place after dropping back to fifth on the backstretch. He finished in 1:52.80, the fastest freshman time in Iowa history.
Only three freshman boys qualified for the 2026 state meet in the 800. All three compete in Class 3A and all three compete in the WaMaC. Solon’s Jaimyn Bevans capped an impressive season with a 2:01.31 clocking and Mt Vernon’s Ben Brinkman also ran well placing 18th in 1:58.63. The pair, combined with Svalstad, should make for some very interesting conference meets over the next three years.
Solon’s 4×400 meter relay squad capped the Spartan’s scoring Saturday afternoon.
The champion 1600 medley foursome of Holtkamp, Kampman, Burk and Svalstad teamed up again to better their eight-seed with a school record 3:20.93 and 4th place finish.
Other Solon state qualifiers included senior Will Brandt (400 hurdles), Kampman (200 meter dash), senior Spencer Michels, sophomore Kaden Recker, Owen Young, and Bevans (4×800 relay), freshman Channing Wildrick, Kampman, Burk, Holtkamp (4×200 relay), Shipley, Brandt, junior Jacob Donnenwerth, and sophomore Michael Bigelow (shuttle hurdle relay).