The Marshall girls 4x800-meter relay team, comprised of (Left to right) Miracle Tucker, Allyson Sample, Anna Kuecker and Taleigha Bigler take a photo with their first-place medals following their first-place finish in the Class AA meet at St. Michael-Albertville High School on Saturday morning.

ST. MICHAEL — The Marshall girls track and field team had a number of big performances at Saturday morning’s Class AA track and field championships at St. Michael-Albertville High School. Yet, none was bigger than the Allyson Sample, Taleigha Bigler, Miracle Tucker and Anna Kuecker setting a class record to win the 4×800-meter relay.

“I have no words right now,” Tucker, a senior, said after the win. “It was a really fun race to run… something that helps me is that you have three other teammates and you’re running for them. Great things happen when you do that and that’s what we did today. There’s more to come. We have a bunch of seventh and eighth graders coming up to break even more records.”

It is the first gold medal in school history along with the first medal under head coach Marie Sample, who’s brought her team to 12 of the last 14 state meets.

“It is special,” Marie Sample said.” We have had a lot of good runners and athletes come through our program. This group really banded together in a really unique way. We saw an opportunity this year. We’ve had some good teams in the past but we also have faced some great competition. This year was the same. This team is resilient. This team was focused all throughout the tournament.

“The team executed well. It was the perfect storm against some really good competition. I am proud of them and they did it. Tucker and I have known each other since eighth grade. She ran hard for her team and we will miss her next year. I’m really proud of her, she gets to walk away with a gold medal and her name on the state board.”

The team finished with a time of 9:22.37, putting them more than four seconds ahead of runner-up Alexandria and six seconds ahead of third-place Mankato East. Spectrum finished fourth in 9:40.54.

“We were going out to have fun today and see what we could do,” Allyson Sample said. ” We have had great runners before us too setting us up for this moment. We have to pull the younger girls in because we have depth and there is more to come.”

This was the first race of the morning and Tucker started it off for the Tigers. She was steady and paced herself with the rest of the pack in the beginning of the race. After her second lap, she passed the baton to Allyson Sample, who took third in Friday’s 3200-meter run. Allyson Sample was able to get around some runners and positioned herself in the front of the pack. With two runners left in the relay, Mankato East was first and Marshall was in third, but not far behind.

Kuecker took the third leg and closed ground between the teams, running hard in the last 200 Meters of the second lap to pull ahead into second place when Bigler received the baton. Bigler, the anchor, easily closed ground and sprinted her last 200 meters to distance herself from the rest of the pack, leaving no doubt and making the Tigers state champions.

“We’ve worked hard all season and now all of it paid off today,” Bigler said. “My teammates got me in the perfect spot to give me the shot for the win and I was trying to do the best for my team.”

“I just think we’ve had a really fun season, hard work paid off,” Kuecker said.

The Tigers we’re not done medaling on the day as Paige Gillingham threw a personal-best 37 feet, 4.25 inches in the shot put to take sixth place as a freshman. Bigler competed in the 800 meters as an individual and ran a 2:19.00 to place sixth.

The Tigers also had another relay team in the state tournament, the 4×400. The team consisted of Katelyn Leibfried, Brianna Simpson, Peyton Boeck and Bigler. The Tigers finished sixth in this race with a time of 4:05.57.