The Northwood-Kensett 4×200-meter relay team came to Drake Stadium with the best qualifying time in Class 1A and Friday the Vikings left the stadium with the best time and a state championship.

Northwood-Kensett senior Sam Arnold started his anchor leg with the Vikings trailing slightly, but Arnold closed the gap and led Northwood-Kensett to its first state championship event in five years. Head coach Dave Capitani believed it to be the first relay state title since the 1980s for the school.

“Early on we envisioned we had a shot to get some of our sprint relays down to state,” Capitani said. “I don’t know if we ever thought about winning state.”

The relay team of Nik Werner, Jayson Olson, Spencer Capitani and Arnold bested the school record by more than three seconds with its time of 1 minute, 31.76 seconds and held of second-place Belle Plaine, which finished with a time of 1:32.06.

The relay team came together in mid-April and through the course of the season took four seconds off its race together and had the best time in the state by the end of April.

The same group also qualified for the finals of the 4×100 relay and set a school record with a time of 43.88 seconds, 12 one hundredths of a second better than the school record.

The 4×100 qualified for the finals with the third-best overall time. The top four relays are separated by less than three tenths of a second.

The 4×100 finals were run on Saturday. The results were not known as this edition went to press.