MEEKER | The 2020 track season began March 2. The following week the full team was together for four practices before the Colorado High School Sports Activities Association announced that all sports practices and competition, music competitions, the state speech tournament and student leadership’s Advisor U are suspended through April 18.
This year’s seniors are Kirstin Brown, Karlee Nielsen, Julia Dinwiddie, Hailey Follman and Josh Dinwiddie.
Brown, Nielsen and Dinwiddie are returning state qualifiers along with underclassmen Savannah Mendenhall, Sarah Kracht, Aspen Merrifield, Hailey Knowles, Jeremy Woodward, Cooper Main, Kelton Turner, Spud White, Porter Hossack and Colby Clatterbaugh.
Head coach John Strate said that “the three weeks we are missing will certainly throw a kink in our training plan. The track season is already short so we will really need to modify our training schedule. This will be tough on the freshmen on the team. In the technical events it will be a challenge to get them up to speed. Fortunately, we have a number of athletes that are self-motivated and will do some things over the course of the practice ban to ensure they stay in shape.”
The first meet of the year was slated for this weekend at Rifle. The team will miss multiple meets during this crucial and unprecedented time in our history, including the only meet to be held on their home track.
Regardless, the team and coaches have set some goals. “Our first goal every year is to get every athlete to work hard and improve. If we do that the rest takes care of itself. We also want to take as many kids to the state track meet as possible. If we can take our large group of freshmen this year and mesh them with our upperclassmen leaders we have a lot of potential,” Strate added.
This year’s team has 52 kids out in total, including 22 freshmen.
When practice has resumed and the first meet is scheduled an update will follow.
