The track and field scene a year ago in Montgomery County was a special one as teams snapped lengthy droughts at the county meet to claim county titles and had strong showings at the Conference meet and into the post-season.
The Crawfordsville girls were the 2022 county champions while the Southmont boys brought home the title for the Mounties.
The Athenians this season will be under first-year head coach Michael Jones he replaces long-time CHS coach Sean Gerold. Jones who has been an assistant with the Athenians is preaching to his team this season about putting in maximum effort.
“You get out of it what you put into it. That’s what I’ve told them early on,” Jones said. “I have always emphasized that hard work and effort will always show in performance. One of the reasons I love track is the fact that an athlete cannot hide behind the success of a teammate. It is you and your opponents and it boils down to who has put in more work and who wants to win.”
A simple and straight forward goal that Jones wants for both his teams is to earn county bragging rights as he looks for the girls to defend their title while hopefully seeing the boys join them in 2023.
Southmont will have the very tall task of having to replace one of the best runners to ever come through the program on the boys side in two-time Journal Review Runner of the Year Trent Jones who now runs at Indiana State.
Despite the loss of Jones longtime coach Desson Hannum notes how his depth on the boys side will come through in a big way.
“It is not often that you have a talent like Trent come through your program,” Hannum said. “When you do it is not something that can be replaced by just one person. We will rely heavily on the depth of our boys team this season. Right now we have about 50 members on this year’s boys team. We will also rely heavily on Nolan Boyer and Sam Line to lead our sprint group. Our distance team, will be lead by Mason Cass. Our field events will be lead by Marlin Williams and Waylon Gomez.”
The Mountie girls bring back both talented runners in DeLorean Mason to help with the sprints and Faith Allen to anchor the distance events.
North Montgomery and Coach Josh Thompson always prepare for the big meets and 2023 is no exception. The Chargers will see it’s veterans lead the way .
“Both the girls and boys teams will be improved this year,” Thompson said. “The older athletes are setting a positive example of the type of work that is needed and the younger athletes have been working at the same standards. We want all athletes to hit their peak when we reach the end of the season at the county, conference, and sectional meets.”
