Girls track gets ready for new season

With the season starting at the Dickinson Relays on March 5. The Hampton-Dumont-CAL girls track and field team are getting ready for the season. Head coach Nicole Donnenwerth said that the team has 12 girls on it heading into their first meet and that the team can do well in the events they are participate in.

The team returns Charlee Morton who took first place in the discus and shot put in state last year and the members of the girls shuttle hurdle team that took 19th place in state consisting of Abby Drier, Lily Hambly, Teaghan Bird, and Aubryee Showalter. 

“Morton is the best thrower in the state in all classes,” Donnenwerth said. “Last year she qualified for the Drake relays in both the discus and the shot put and she won both of those events so she would be the defending champion this year if she qualifies. She has done it all.”

With having a smaller team this season, Donnenwerth said that the Bulldogs compete well at the large meets they participate in. But because of having a smaller team the Bulldogs don’t score as well in smaller meets.

“Because the events we enter we finish very high,” Donnenwerth said. “So in the big meets we go in and win a couple of events and that gives us enough points to place pretty high as a team. It is those smaller meets that only have four, five, or six teams that if teams win events they can double place events and they can fill all the events and get tons of points. So at the smaller meets we don’t do nearly as well as we do in the bigger ones.”

By the time the Bulldogs head out for their first meet they will have had six practices and Donnenwerth said that right now the team is trying to figure out where each athlete is the strongest when it comes to what events. Donnenwerth said right now the team is focused on the athletes individual goals for the year.

“The obvious one is for Charlee to return and compete well. We also have a freshman thrower in Maren Subbert who was a conference champ as an eighth grader and we have an idea of what she can do and we are excited to see that,” Donnenwerth said. “We would love to see the shuttle hurdle get back to state and we would love to see individual hurdles qualify for state. Lydia Maas is a senior and is the only runner, male or female, to qualify for the state cross country meet all four years. She’s one of the better distance runners in our class and she’s got big personal goals this year. Lily Hambly is a high jumper for us and she narrowly missed qualifying for the state meet last year in the high jump and she is looking really good so far.”

As the season moves along, Donnenwerth said one thing she hopes the team takes away from the early meets is that the indoor meets are a big stage and to get used to the big stage by going to these meets.

“Just stepping up and getting rid of those nerves and running for the fun of it and enjoying it,” Donnenwerth said. “That is what we are doing early on is just getting them comfortable.”