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HARTINGTON — Cedar Catholic track and field mentor Blair Kalin starts his second season at the head of the Trojan and Lady Trojan track programs and is looking to keep moving forward as he welcomed his teams to practice this spring.
The Lady Trojans will be a little lacking in the pure numbers department, but what they lack in quantity, they certainly make up for in quality.
“Our numbers are somewhat low so depth could be an issue,” said Kalin. “One place we really need to work on is throwers, we need to develop some good throwers, try to develop some depth there.”
Cedar Catholic should be solid on the track. “We should have a strong sprint group,” the coach said. “Lauren Bernecker had a great season last year and will lead our girls.”
Bernecker can run anything from the 100 to the 800 and probably even the 1,600, if she wasn’t so valuable in the shorter races.
She’ll be joined by three sophomores who can really fly.
Anisten Wortmann, Kally Becker and Lauren’s sister, Brynn, are all built to run, and are getting quite good at it.
“Kally and Anisten had great freshmen seasons,” said Kalin. Claire Rolfes is a solid distance runner and we return our 1,600 and 3,200-meter relay teams completely.”
“I expect us to do well this season,” said Kalin. “We should be able to score well in the sprints and the jumps. We can score pretty high in some events, so I expect us to challenge for some meet wins.”
Wortmann already won a couple of events in the Wayne State High School Indoor meet last week in the 200-meter dash and the long jump and Lauren Bernecker won the title in the 400.
“Our best asset is these girls aren’t afraid to work hard,” said the coach. “We’ll just keep working and keep trying to get better each day.”
The Trojans return plenty of numbers and talent for this year’s team. “We will be strong in the sprints and the middle distances,” Kalin said. “We should be strong in the relays and Jared Rutar and Graham Potts are pretty good throwers.”
The sprints will be covered by senior, Braeden Reifenrath, who qualified for state last season and he will be joined by sophomore, Booker Hochstein in the sprints and jumps.
Nolan Becker and Matthew Loecker provide a lot of quality in the middle distances and Alex Elks placed fifth in the 1,600 at the Wayne indoor meet.
“A lot of our guys just started with basketball just getting done,” the coach said. “We’ll just keep working hard and try to get better each time we step on the track.”
The Trojans and Lady Trojans will head north this week for another indoor meet at Mount Marty College on March 27 before hosting the Cedar Catholic Invitational on April 1.
Hartington-Newcastle will host its invitational on April 8 then head to the Knight Invitational in Homer on April 11.
Another home invitational will be run on April 15, then travel to Pierce for the Tom Martin Invitational on April 24.
The Norfolk Classic will open May on the first with the Mid-State Conference Meet scheduled to run, May 3.
