Churchill County Middle School’s track team learned a lot during their first meet of the season in Dayton April 14. Now it’s time to arrange the athletes for the best competition.
Eighth-grade boys’ coach Brian McAlexander said it was a positive day for everyone. He recalled the eighth-grade boys 100-meter hurdle and 100-meter dash athletes set new school records.
“Hopefully we can get faster on that as the season goes,” he said.
The team was not at full strength for the meet. Kari Lister, sixth-grade girls’ coach, said she only had three of her eight athletes at the event. She added the others didn’t qualify for competition due to grades, or not having a physical or registration fee turned in.
The three who competed, however, did very well. Lister recalled all three placed in each of their events — the 400-meter, high jump, long jump, triple jump, hurdles and 200-meter.
McAlexander also said the meet showed what areas they need to work on and gives them a direction to work toward. He said they had trouble with some of the race events and said their best 400-meter runner wasn’t at the meet, which hurt them overall. However, he noted it was still early enough to get better.
The coach said his goal is to score team points in every event. To reach this goal, he said he might need to move athletes around so there is strong competition in every part of the meet.
“I might have to take a guy off a relay team to get us points in something else,” he said. “Right now it’s just a matter of shifting players and personnel into positions where they’re most effective.”
Lister noted the sixth-graders are new to the competition and still learning. She said they tend to move around a lot and try every event; if they find something they’re good at or want to try more they can stick with it going forward. The older athletes, though, will usually be assigned to events that best suit their abilities.
“They’re kind of getting a feel for what they want to do,” Lister said. “As time progresses, then we can take more athletes that can participate and we can narrow it down to who are best at what event.”
The track team’s next meet is Friday at Silverland Middle School.