BOYS TRACK: Howard County 2021 season preview

Kokomo Tribune - Friday, Apr 9, 2021

When we last had a boys track and field season, Kokomo’s squad surged to a big victory in the Kokomo Sectional, and a lot of local underclassmen took first or were near the top in individual events. But the 2020 season never came to see those athletes take the next step.

Now, after a one-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes are back on track. Howard County’s squads are very different. Western and Eastern now have a lot of experienced seniors, Kokomo has a lot of newcomers, including upperclassmen out for the first time, Northwestern has a new coach for a largely untested squad, and Taylor is rebuilding.

What is universal is that the coaches and athletes are glad to be back.

“It’s weird to say, but 2020 was really great for us because we were able to focus and not take anything for granted,” Eastern coach Kyle Hannah said. “No matter what happens, we’re always going to be happy with the result, because we’re so happy to be out there again. That’s one of the biggest things, and the other thing is we learned a lot of patience.”

Below are previews of the five Howard County teams, in order of finish at the 2019 sectional.

KOKOMO

With 30-plus athletes on hand, including senior Bryan Stoltzfus, who was part of the sectional-winning 3,200 relay team as a sophomore, Kokomo coach Jordan Ousley thinks the Wildkats have all their bases covered. However most of the team is inexperienced, though the Kats got a strong influx of athletes from other sports out for the first time.

“I think we can score in pretty much every event to be honest by the end of the season,” Ousley said. “Obviously missing the last couple years, we don’t know who is going to be in every spot. We feel confident by the time we get into may when we get our conference meet and the sectional, we should have a shot to score one and even two in every event.

“There’s probably about 25, 26, 27 who have never ran track at the varsity level. We have a handful of [experienced] seniors and a handful of juniors. We’re trying to put them in places where we think they can benefit us, whether it’s a relay team or individual event.”

Ousley will rely heavily on distance runner Stoltzfus, junior pole vaulter/hurdler Isaac Elkin, junior sprinter Plez Lawrence and junior sprinter/long jumper Ta’Shy Stewart to lead the inexperienced Kats in practice. A junior with helpful experience is Jarece Rogers, who reached the regional in long jump as a freshman.

Helping Stoltzfus lead the distance group is experienced junior Collin Keesling. Also in distance events are sophomores Noah Thompson and Parker Cage, senior Emmanuel Garang, and freshmen A.J. Blessing and Adam Kemper.

Sophomore Shayne Spear, senior Kolton Nickle, and juniors Tyreese Tucker, Brayden Camp and Dre’Veon Lewis are the throwers. None has thrown before and they’re learning technique as they start the season.

Elkin is the top pole vaulter after competing as a freshman. First-year senior Harvey Barr, sophomore Cameron Harris and freshman Ethan Wyrick are also pole vaulters. Long jumpers include Rogers and Stewart. Other long jump and high jump options are first-year senior R.J. Oglesby, and freshmen Rondell Greene, Eric Thomas and Lukas Degraffenreid.

Manning sprints and relays with some hurdles mixed in are Lawrence, Elkin, Greene, Rogers, Stewart, Oglesby, Degraffenreid, Thomas, freshman Tracy Dowling, senior Torian Smith, back after competing as a freshman, and senior Chris Qui.

The Wildkats are low on experience but have strong athleticism with a fresh influx of athletes from other sports.

“There’s a lot of unknowns out there with everybody [missing a season],” Ousley said. “Hopefully we’re at our best and we can compete for the sectional title again or compete for the top half of the [North Central] Conference again. It kind of is a rebuilding year, but we’re also hoping to reload a little bit.

“There’s a few guys, their goals are personally to make it to the state meet as individuals. Obviously, first goal is the team to have as much success as possible.”

Kokomo opens Saturday at the Columbus North Invitational.

NORTHWESTERN

Former Northwestern athlete and long-serving assistant coach Alex Pier takes over as coach and said the transition has been “a lot easier than anticipated.” He’s got a crew of 35 athletes, but not a lot of personnel who have played big roles in the past.

“We are incredibly young as far as experience goes,” Pier said. “We have a decent spread across our grades but as far as track experience, it’s very low. We had a lot of guys that Western on Tuesday, it was their first meet.

“It’s really impressive how hard they’re going after things. They don’t want to miss a step.”

With a missed season, it’s difficult to know early on what athletes are best suited to what events.

“I think we’re pretty level across the board as far as our skill goes,” Pier said. “Guys are going to be moving around, especially losing last year, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit to maximize the roster and maximize the team.

“The flexibility of the boys to traverse that has been very, very helpful. Their willingness to go do an event they may not have done before has always been a resounding, ‘Yes, coach.”

Pier is relying on the four returning seniors to lead the team and help in practice: sprinter Mag Garro, thrower Kyle Cardwell, Hunter Mohr and Mason Harrell.

Other key returning athletes include six juniors: sprinter/high jumper A’Marion Conyers, hurdler Caden Gaier, thrower Ethan Haynes, distance runner Isaiah Kanable, middle distance runner Caden Lechner, who may also man the long jump, and sprinter Tyler Lake.

“It’s a long way to June, a lot of these guys have little to no experience in a training sport so [I’m] teaching them to take care of their bodies, teaching them healthy lifestyle and things that can be held post-graduation.

“As far as specifically in the season, it’s get better every day, learn to be competitors in all facets of our life and we can start this at the track, and give these boys something they’re missing when we lost last spring and a lot of joy was taken at that point.”

Northwestern opened the season Tuesday against Western and ran Thursday against Eastern and Elwood.

WESTERN

The Panthers have 41 athletes and plenty of experience with 10 seniors. Included in that senior group are Brayden Curnutt and Joseph Packard, who went 1-2 in the 3,200 at the 2019 sectional. Curnutt also won the 1,600 at the sectional.

He and Packard enrich a strong distance group.

“Obviously we’re really strong in the distance and mid-distance events,” Western coach Gary Jewell said. “Looking at what we did this fall [in cross country season], it presents us with an opportunity to do some things that we haven’t been able to do the last couple years — mainly not load up your top distance guys. When you’ve got somebody of [Curnutt’s] caliber, that’s what you want to do because you want those guys to be able to perform when it really matters.”

Depth at distance and mid-distance means Western can limit how many laps its distance guys run and keep them fresher for when the conference and sectional meets arrive in May. Other distance and mid-distance contributors include seniors Cade Shock and Matthew Edison.

Jewell said another strength is “the throws. I think we’re exceptionally strong this year. You saw that Evan Kretz threw [discus] 165 feet his first meet two weeks ago and you add to that a guy like Daniel Marley, he’s got an added advantage on everybody else when he’s got an extra 5 or 6 inches [of height] on everybody else, you get that much more on your throws.”

Kretz is a junior and Marley is a senior. Also in the throwing mix are senior Coby Tuggle and junior Rhett Berryman. Former Western coach Marvin Boswell is back on board to coach the throwers, a big advantage for Jewell.

Jewell expects the Panthers to score well is in the hurdles as well where juniors Taylor Rathbun and Blake Shelton have already posted strong times.

Pole vaulters include senior Drew Caldwell, and junior Brady Parks, a move-in from Las Vegas.

The Panthers don’t have a lot of options in sprinting. The fastest athletes on the sprint group are senior Jerry Padgett and junior Hayden Shepherd, who is pole vaulting but also lending a hand to the sprints. Kretz, who can line up at any distance from 100 to 1,600, is also sprinting. Junior Pete Bradshaw is the anchor of the mid-distance events.

Other athletes who will slot in are junior Jethro Parado and first-year senior Simha Sinkfield.

Jewell thinks the Panthers have the personnel to compete for hardware as a team and advance individuals in the state tournament trail.

“We want to compete for a top spot in the [Hoosier] conference and sectional, and then we want to see how many guys we can get, not only out of sectional, but out of regional. We’ve been represented in the state meet every year since 2009 and we’d like to continue that trend of state qualifiers.”

Top candidates to reach the last meet of the season are Curnutt, who was 27th in the 3,200 at the state meet as a sophomore, and Kretz, whose early-season effort in discus would put him on a state track.

Western opened the season March 23 against Hamilton Heights, then returned from spring break with a meet Tuesday against Northwestern.

EASTERN

The Comets have 42 athletes out for track and are top heavy with seniors, giving them a significant leg up in experience at the start of the season.

“We have 19 seniors, probably the biggest senior class I’ve ever had,” Kyle Hannah said. “Not having a season last year [was] obviously very discouraging. It can be very discouraging for everybody, but the fact that we’ve got pretty much everybody back from our campaign in 2019 is pretty encouraging and they’re ready to rock and roll.”

The Comets have talent spread throughout the team and don’t expect to have to rely on one area.

“I don’t feel like we’re necessarily dominant in any one particular area, I feel like we’re spread out pretty well,” Hannah said. “We feel pretty good about really everywhere, even some new people that came out.”

Hannah said the team’s strength starts with the senior captains, who set goals and lead groups of athletes. They include thrower A.J. Wiles, distance runner Caleb Vogl, high jumper and hurdler Jaeden Hannah, and sprinter Makhai Reed.

Other key seniors include Evan Monize (400, 1,600 relay) Drew Monize (800, 3,200 relay) and Callum Brand (high jump, long jump).

Key juniors are Karsen Stiner (400, hurdles, high jump), Jacob Morrow (300 hurdles, 400 relay), and Liberty Christian transfer Jordan Armogum (3,200 relay, 800, 1,600). Key sophomores are Sam Duke (3,200 relay, 800) and Jaidan Redmann (pole vault, long jump). A freshman expected to make an instant impact is sprinter Jayden Eagle.

Pre-season meetings initially led to a lot of disagreements about goals.

“Finally, A.J. Wiles just said … ‘why don’t we just go to state,’” Kyle Hannah said. “Really our only goal is to get to state, whoever it may be. We legitimately may only have two or three people who have a shot, but if that means people who don’t have a shot helping those people, so be it.

“We always want to win sectionals. Obviously we want county, we want [Hoosier Heartland] conference, things like that. I want to win everything, but the only thing I’m focusing on now is we want to get to the state finals.”

Eastern opened Tuesday against Tipton and Taylor, and Thursday against Northwestern.

TAYLOR

The Titans will face a numbers crunch with just eight athletes, no seniors and only a couple experienced athletes. The most experienced are junior thrower Domonick Durham and sophomore pole vaulter Sam Amos, who vaulted in middle school.

Other athletes include sophomore thrower Alexander Lindley, freshman sprinter/long jumper Angelo Anders, freshman hurdler/sprinter Ryan Fleek, freshman sprinter/jumper Chris Moore, freshman distance runner/pole vaulter Paul Lowery, and sophomore distance runner Braden Watts.

Taylor coach Matt Carlile said the best areas for the Titans to score points are “probably in the sprints and jumps. [We’ve] just got talented kids, three-sport athletes. Chris Moore, he’s a freshman so might be less competitive against seasoned athletes, but a lot of talent. And the freshman class [has] a lot of energy. We’ve already had one meet; everybody performed well.

“They’ve got a strong work ethic coming in. It’s a small group but they’re high-energy, hard-working and I think that’s going to lead to a lot of success for them.”

Taylor opened the season Tuesday against Eastern and Tipton, and ran against Tri-Central on Thursday.

“We’ve got a baseline now after our first meet and we just want to continue to move the mark, PRs for everybody, keep improving throughout the season and peak at the right time.”