Girls track gets under way after break

Analyzing girls track in March is a little risky.

“You never know what you have until you see the kids in a couple meets,” Central Valley coach Dennis McGuire said. “Especially with the freshman class.”

Incoming freshmen, area coaches will tell you, can play a major role in a team’s success.

“Absolutely,” East Valley coach Shane Toy said. “In a lot of ways, girls track works backward from boys track. With the boys, your team builds over the years, and the athletes improve.

“Girls develop so much faster. You more often see freshmen come in and do extremely well and then trail off as they get older. That’s not true of all girls, of course.”

Area track teams will have several junior varsity and nonleague meets in which to evaluate athletes before the Greater Spokane League season gets under way after spring break.

Each of the Valley’s four GSL high schools benefits from strong track and field programs at the middle school level.

“They all do a great job,” Toy said. “They get the kids out and let them have fun – exposing them to the different events and teaching them properly. The kids get the chance to try things out and discover their strengths and fall in love with the sport.”

Central Valley Bears

The Bears return junior Anna Layman, who placed third in last year’s state 800-meter final, posting a time of 2 minutes, 15.31 seconds.

“The thing with Anna is keeping her healthy,” McGuire said. “When she’s healthy, she’s outstanding.”

Layman missed most of the cross country season with plantar fasciitis. Before that, it was painful shin splints – a condition that prevented her from training at full speed leading up to last year’s state track meet.

Layman had an outstanding, pain-free freshman season at Central Valley, but has been hampered since.

The Bears will largely rely on its strong underclass. The team’s senior class consists of distance runner Molly Weisbeck, jumper Marisa Schlaich, throwers Jena Hall and Becky Hickman and Sara Wilson, who should score in the hurdles, sprints and could branch out into the jumps.

Lisa Haley returns after a successful freshman season as a hurdler and member of the 4x400 relay team. Junior Adrienne Duval should lead in the sprints. Sophomore high jumper Hailey Ficklin appears healthy after injuring a hip flexor last year.

Sophomore gymnast Maria Alderman will play a big role in the sprints and relays and is adding pole vault to her resume.

Juniors Heather Troyer and Sarah Gehring both will compete in the shot put and discus, and Tracy Goehri will throw the javelin.

McGuire is impressed by freshmen Breanne Ehlert in the distance races and Allison Giusti in the hurdles and jumps.

“We have a bunch of good freshmen,” McGuire said. “We’re going to have to wait to see just exactly what we have in that class before we can begin to put together our relays.”

University Titans

Coach Amanda Velasquez is in a similar situation with her cross-district rival CV Bears. She has held off declaring a varsity lineup until she can truly evaluate her freshman class.

“It’s tough to tell just what we have so far – I lost a lot of athletes off the track,” she said. “I lost a lot of really good sprinters and some of my better distance kids – like Amie Dahnke. I need to see what I have before I can really set a varsity.

“We’re going to be really young on the track.”

Senior regional veteran Victoria Benson will branch out from the hurdles to help out in a number of areas, including the long jump and triple jump.

Twin sisters Karen and Katie Owens and Leslie Berkseth, all sophomores, and senior Katie Fuchs all will run distance races.

Juniors Kayla McGahey and Katie Hawkins both compete in the pole vault and Janna Erickson, battling an injured shoulder, will compete in the shot put, discus and javelin.

“Kayla was approaching 10 feet last year in her first year pole vaulting,” Velasquez said. “She had a good first year.”

Freshman Evie Baker has been impressive thus far in the throwing events, the coach said.

East Valley Knights

The Knights have a committed senior class and a strong group of incoming freshmen as they drop down to compete as a Class 3A school.

“I don’t know but what we would have had an easier time getting to state as a Class 4A school,” Toy said. “The 4A schools qualify more kids to state than the 3A schools will. Not only will we have to compete with North Central, which didn’t lose anyone to graduation from last year, but we’ll also have to compete with Hanford and West Valley-Yakima, which have traditionally strong programs.”

The Knights have more than 60 athletes out for track, including a dozen freshmen.

“We went down for a meet at Clarkston last week and had some pleasant surprises,” Toy said. “We lost five really good seniors who competed in 10 events for us. That’s a big hole to fill. But we have back some quality kids. I think we can be fairly tough. We’ll know better in another month.”

Senior Kim Bendio has emerged as a leader, running the 100 and 200 meters and the 4x100 and 4x200 relays.

“She’s going to be all over for us,” Toy said. “She a good athlete and a good leader for us.”

Junior Jo E. Mayer comes off her best cross country season to lead a solid group in the distance races.

Freshman Morgan Dunning is going to vault, triple jump, run the 300 hurdles and help out with the mile relay. Classmate Lori Bourgeous will run both hurdles, high jump and run the 4x200 relay. Freshman Katie Arnold will score in the sprints.

“It’s nice to get a couple of freshmen who are quality athletes,” Toy said. “We’re expecting a lot of good things from them.”

West Valley Eagles

West Valley will have to wait to see what highly touted freshman Melissa Mauro does on the track.

Maruo tore an ACL in her knee during the basketball season and will miss the spring season.

“We were all pretty excited about what she could do, but we’ll just have to wait,” West Valley coach Rick Kuhl said.

The Eagles’ cupboard isn’t bare.

“We want to see what these kids can do in a meet,” Kuhl said. “But even more than that, we need to see just what we have, talent-wise, and make sure we have coverage in all events.”

Senior Megan Price will lead the Eagle sprinters after running a season-best 27.1 seconds in the 200 meters a year ago. She also will run in the sprint relays. Senior Christina Flint also will run the sprints and sprint relays.

Senior Mandi Hohner will pole vault and Emily Sasse will compete in the throws.

Junior Larsen Agee will run the distance races as well as help out on the mile relay and in the high jump. Senior Sherrie Gower and her sophomore sister, Jessica, both compete in the jumps.

The freshman class looks strong.

“It should be a good class,” Kuhl said. “We had some throwers look really good this week and we’re excited about them. Chelsea Bowman already earned her way onto the 4x100 relay team and will run the sprints for us.”