By Rob Patrick
Imagine competing for a State championship to start your season.[more] Daunting as that might be, it’s where the track teams of Arkansas including Bryant’s find themselves after inclement weather wiped out meets leading up to the State Indoor meet which will be held at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville this Saturday.
“We’re in the process of doing some time trials to settle some issues about who’s going and who’s running what events,” said Hornets track coach Steve Oury on Tuesday. “Some of the events, it’s clear-cut. You have people like Tanner Tolbert and Dylan Winfrey. We know they’re going to be doing certain events.”
Tolbert and Winfrey return as top sprinters for the Hornets. They provided half of a school-record setting 4×100 relay team.
“Luke Lindsley, obviously, is going to be running distance events,” Oury added, referring to the recent Arkansas State University signee. “But then there’s also some spots that are up for grabs. And we’re doing the time trials to kind of let them settle it on their own. I think that’s the best way to do it, with head-to-head competition.”
Unlike other meets, only three athletes can enter an event at the State Indoor.
“It’s basically the best three,” said Lady Hornets coach Dan Westbrook. “We haven’t had a whole lot of quality practice time because of the weather so we’re kind of going into the State meet blind.”
“The kids understand that some of them may not get to compete,” Oury acknowledged, “but they also understand that they all get a shot at it.”
Both coaches acknowledged that the usual favorites exist.
“It’ll be teams from up there,” Westbrook said, referring to the northwest Arkansas area. “Bentonville, but one team that’s going to be really strong in our conference is going to be Cabot. Cabot has a shot this week. They have really good sprinters, they have one good distance runner that has a chance to win two events and pole vaulter that’s probably going to win. I might call them the favorite and I hate to say that because they’re in our conference but it’s good to see central Arkansas maybe coming through with some talent we haven’t seen before.”
“I’d say Fayetteville is probably going to be our favorite,” Oury said. “After that, Bentonville’s going to be good but you have to wonder with the weather that we’ve had — and it’s been even worse up there. I know it’s affected our team so I’m sure it’s probably had an effect on their teams. So you really don’t know what to expect as far as the conditioning level of the athletes.
“I think it may affect distance runners more than sprinters depending on whether or not a kid had access to a treadmill,” he continued. “Some of those kids may not have been able to run for several days and, this time of year, that can have a definite effect. Otherwise, I think we have a chance to score quite a few points with the people we have and whether or not it’s going to be enough to give us a chance to get a trophy, we’ll find out.”
Oury said having veterans like Tolbert, Winfrey, Lindsley and others helps. “They have high expectations for themselves and they’ve been there and done that. They expect to be up there competing to win or come in the top three in certain events. We hope that we can have some other kids that maybe have not been there before can step up and scratch out a point or two here and there to help push us up closer to the top.”
As for the Lady Hornets, Westbrook said, “On the distance side, we’ve got Hannah Rainey. She’s all-conference from last year and cross country, and all-State at one point. She’s going to have to carry a pretty heavy load. We’ve also got Stacy Emmerling and Stacy Waite, who’s basically our lone senior back as a distance runner.
“We’re going to have to depend on some of our freshmen indoors,” he added. “They can run indoors for the high school team and we have a pretty good crew of freshman distance runners. I’ll be anxious to see how they do.
“Sprint-wise, probably, right now I’d say Alexis Royal who’s a sophomore,” said the coach. “She won the 100, the 200 and the long jump last year in the junior high conference meet. We’re looking for her to step up. We added Brianna White, who came in from volleyball, and I think she’s going to do some exciting things for us. Morgan Humbard and Bailey Seelinger, those are some of our senior leaders that we’ll be depending on. In the field events, we’ve got Lauren Magneson back doing the high jump.”
Looking ahead to the outdoor schedule, Bryant will compete in a practice meet at Conway on Tuesday, March 8, then host the annual Hornet Relays on Thursday, March 17, to officially open the season.
