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by Joshua Cox
The NS track team is doing well. Competing in six track meets so far, they have not only done well as a team, but also individually, because track really is a kind of individual sport.
“It’s you against you,” said NS track coach Scott Butler. “If you make improvements through hard work and practice, the winning aspect just takes care of itself.”
For a lot of the track members, this is definitely true. Tylee Henrie, a sophomore, broke a school record in the high jump, at 5 foot 1 inch. Laramie Roberts, a senior, is also doing well in the shot putt and the discus. With their scores, they both qualified for state.
“I do a lot of training,” Henrie said. “Even though it sucks, it helps me so I can get better and improve.”
Because track is such a diverse sport, the training is different depending on what event you compete in. For Henrie, it’s practicing the high jump and going to the weight room to strength train.
“The kids who consistently come to practice are always getting better,” said track coach Bill Pollock, “It’s fun to see them improving.”
The team does have a lot of room to improve, and that’s exactly what’s happening. In fact, most members of the team get a personal best every track meet.
“We have lots of brand new kids, lots of young freshmen,” Butler said. “So there’s going to be a pretty big improvement curve for a while.”
But despite having a team so young, the future’s looking bright.
“At our first big invitational, at Snow Canyon,” said Butler, “I put four freshmen girls into a medley relay and they qualified for state, which is definitely not easy to do.”
For those four girls, Ashlyn Anderson, Journey Toomey, Abri Benson, and Mari Briggs, their times are looking promising for years to come.
But even though there are a lot of new students who are doing track this year and doing quite well, the NS track team is small compared to other schools. The track team has about fifty kids, while most schools have around one hundred kids.
“There’s so many kids on the other teams,” Henrie said. “Then there’s our team that’s super small. ”
Despite the small numbers, the team is bigger than it has been in several years.
“From the time I started coaching track to now, there has been an increase in numbers,” Pollock said. “So I’m really grateful to those kids who are willing to give it a try.”
But why is the track team so small in the first place?
“North Sanpete is still struggling to understand how doing track—the running, jumping and throwing—benefits all other sports,” Butler said. “So we don’t have nearly as many kids as we should have.”
But despite most of NS not having caught on yet, the track team has done some incredible things along with qualifying for state.
“A kind of a benchmark for track is qualifying for the BYU invitational,” Butler said. “The standards aren’t as stringent as they are for state, but we’ve maxed out our possible participation in that event, which is great.”
They also expect to do pretty well at region, although competition is expected to be really tough. For the girls, our region is actually the toughest in the state. Delta is expected to take state this year, and Union, Manti, Juab, and ALA are also doing well this year.
“We’ll be fighting and clawing for places in region to get to state,” Butler said. “We’ll do our research and place athletes where we think they’ll have the best opportunities for success.”
Even with a difficult region meet coming up, track is doing well this year. With not many kids, it’s hard, but the team is making it work.
“The kids competing are really doing well this year,” Pollock said. “They’re just getting better and better every week.”
