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The track and field team this year has grown drastically compared to past years with help from the new PE teacher, Bill Pollock, who has been able to spot good runners in his PE classes. Pollock strongly encourages them to come to practices, helping the team to grow.
“It has been to nice to see the program grow and be able to see it go somewhere in the future,” said junior Linzy Flinders.
Flinders, a captain for the team who runs the 400 meter and the 800 meter races, has qualified for the BYU invitational as have many others on the team. This year they have had most that have ever qualified in a long time. Taking around 30 kids to BYU is a big accomplishment, while in the past they have only had a couple be fast enough.
“We have been trying to qualify as many kids as we can for BYU,” said coach Scott Butler.
The team has been working hard this season, and just past the midpoint, the opportunities to qualify for state are fewer.
Flinders has been putting in extra work on and off the track in the weightroom and running on her own. She hopes to shave some seconds off her time in order to qualify for state.
Although this year with the new region change making this a little more difficult. Only the top four teams go to state out of seven. With as big of a team as we have this year, and as many people that have already qualified for BYU, the team hopes to have a good turn out for state.
Along with having so many runners this year, there are also more throwers than ever before. This is thanks to having an actual throwing coach this season. In the past, throwing athletes would have to coach themselves.
Rhett Bird, head football coach, is coaching the javelin, discus, and shot put, with help from Pollock.
“We have a lot of new kids, it has been really good, but we have had a lot of learning curves,” said Bird.
Overall there are about 18 throwers, four have already qualified BYU. Madyson Allred took first in a meet, Laramey Roberts is ten feet away from qualifying for state. They are doing very well for such a new team, most everyone is throwing for the first year.
