A trip to California for the Mt. SAC Relays might have been just what the Hawkeyes needed as they began an important three-meet stretch.

No team scores were kept during the April 18-19 meet, but a squad that needed a bit of a boost got one in areas that it has not excelled in recently.

The Hawkeye relays were strong; the men’s and women’s 4×100-meter and 4×400-meter relays all finished in the top eight.

In the men’s 4×100 —senior Tevin-Cee Mincy, freshman O’Shea Wilson, sophomore Brendan Thompson, and junior Keith Brown — was the best of the relays with a fifth-place finish in a time of 40.46.

The women’s 4×400 grabbed seventh with a time of 3:37.73, and the men’s 4×400 and women’s 4×100 crossed the line in eighth with times of 3:11.92 and 45.6.

Head coach Layne Anderson felt that the progress was certainly in the right direction after a negative couple of meets in the past few weeks.

“It was a solid outing in California,” Anderson said. “We made some further progress in our continued preparation for the championship portion of our schedule.”

For Iowa to contend in that season, the field events will have to continue to carry a heavy load. In California, they demonstrated that they remain up to the task.

Junior Babatunde Amosu was the only Iowa athlete who won an event this past weekend, and did so with gusto — his combined jumps totaled nearly a meter more than the second-place finisher. Senior Zinnia Miller also performed well in the women’s triple-jump, finishing third.

Several women throwers set new bests for themselves, most notably Sophomore Dakotah Goodell in the discus. She hit a mark of 160-8 (48.98 meter) which is the third best toss in program history.

Sprints and short distance races were not all that impressive for the Hawkeyes, though it is important to note that races were open and many of the top finishers were near or at pro level.

The highlights were few for Iowa, though freshman Aaron Mallett did finish fifth in the 110-meter hurdles.

This meet also served as one of the last chances for many athletes to run times or get marks to qualify for this coming weekend’s Drake Relay’s in Des Moines. The qualifiers will be announced in the coming days.