Coach Goatley optimistic about boys and girls track teams

The boys won our home track meet by 19 points. The boys are doing pretty good this year.

Q. Who are your stars?

Ethan Parshall and Brayden Housh are leading the way in pole vault. One week Ethan will win it. The next week Brayden will win it. They are back and forth, pretty close.

Brayden usually places in the javelin as well and the high hurdles. Shelby McKinney has won several times in jav and has advanced in discus and shot. Javelin is probably his best event of the three but he usually scores in all three.

Daelen Ackley, our freshman boy, does pretty good in the distance races. We have Taylor Wingert who has been scoring in hurdles with Brayden.

Our relays are coming along.

Then we have a bunch of key support kids on the team who are really helping out.

On our home meet, I think we scored one or two people in every event except for long jump and the 400 meter dash.

When you score in almost every event, that gives you a good chance of being up there toward the top as a team. We were one and two in pole vault. We were first and third in javelin. We were second and third in the hundred hurdles. We were first in the 300 hurdles. So, they really gel together. This is the first time in a long time since very early on when I started coaching that we have had hurdlers really making some strides into going well. That is nice to see.

Yeah. They are doing real well up and down the board. Quite a few people making an impact.

Q. The one I came out and  got a photo of working with Dr. Housh did well.

Taylor Wingert is really working hard. He’s just a sophomore this year. Really still young and has got a lot of room for growth. He’s getting better every day.

Or course, some of these guys like Brayden and Ethan, they push each other in practice which helps make them better. So when Wingert and Housh are able to push each other in the hurdles that helps everybody get better. Then Wingert goes on and runs the 300 hurdles by himself.

Q. On the girls side, does Sara King run track or just cross country?

She runs track but she dealt with an injury in cross country and she is just now kinda getting over that injury. She’s kinda behind the game right now. She’s starting to get there.  If she keeps working, I think by the end of the season she’ll be where we need whether it be an open half or in the supporting cast on a 4×800 relay.

Last night (in Pittsburg), it was good to see the girls going the other way. Morgan Mitchell runs the half and the quarter. If we have a successful 4×800 she will be part of that. Kenli Rader is also part of that 4×800. She’s more of a distance girls so she runs the mile and two mile. They don’t run the longer distances in Middle School so last night was kind of a break through race for her.

Q. How’d she do?

She wound up going 13.12. I think she was a 4th in her heat, 21st overall. She improved by well over a minute over the first time she ran it this year. When she got done, I said, “You still had some in the tank, didn’t you?”

She said, “Yeah.”

So really we are just getting her to believe she could run as fast as she did. In fact, she didn’t believe she could run nearly as fast as she ran.

I said, “You still had more in the tank. You’ve got a long ways to go.”

I think the possibilities are limitless there. If she starts running with confidence. She was 14th in state in cross country. I think once she gets that confidence in track as the season progresses, she is just going to get better and better.

Our other runner in 4×800 from last year is Leah Rohlin.         

Last year was her first year of doing track or anything. She is finally starting to figure things out. Of course, this being her second year, she is starting to figure things out a little bit quicker than last year.

Of course, we have some senior sprinters. We have Abby Cartwright and Courtney Templin. Sierra Castro is probably our top thrower. She is the only javelin thrower we’ve ever had. She broke her own school record from last year and she went 84-3 in ElDo then she turned around and went 84-11 last night at Pitt State. That was a PR (personal record) for her which is a new school record.

On our boys and girls teams we have a lot of freshmen, a lot of future ahead of us. Hopefully we can keep them happy and keep them interested. They are the future of the program.