North Montgomery track and field has been on a tear in recent years.
The Chargers have won six-straight boys’ county titles, and last year made it five-straight on the girls’ side. The boys’ team also claimed its first Sagamore Conference title since 1984 last spring.
A total of 14 seniors were set to return to help defend those titles, but won’t get the chance after the COVID-19 pandemic canceled high school spring sports in Indiana.
“That class means a lot to the program,” North Montgomery coach Josh Thompson said. “A lot of those kids are also football players and meant a lot to the football team, and I think they were going to carry over what they did for the football team to the track team. The boys are defending conference champs and both the boys and girls were defending county champs, and those seniors were going to be important for us this year.”
On the girls’ side, Samantha Knowling, Khloey Surface, and Cristal Torres returned, while senior boys included Jaron Braford, Keifer Carmean, Adam and Colby Coon, Baydin Hall, KC Isbell, Tony Jaimez, Kade Kobel, Ben Lovold, Avery Stevens, and Nick Rice.
“Obviously it’s disappointing that the season gets canceled,” Thompson added. “We have a great group of kids that we work with, freshmen through seniors. They were really buying in to what we were doing.”
Thompson could see the seniors taking on leaderships roles in the early part of the season, and feels like they have since handled the cancellation of their final seasons pretty well.
“They started the year off really well,” he said. “Their leadership was good, their work ethic was good, their attitudes were good, and again it’s just disappointing for those kids, and it gets cut short due to circumstances beyond their control. I think they’re taking it pretty well, but obviously the seniors are missing out on a lot of things right now with spring sports, prom, graduation and just the end of school stuff.”
North Montgomery track and field has continued to stay engaged with its athletes, having them send pictures or videos of workouts that they then share on social media as a way to help create accountability with the athletes.
The ideas has since taken off, getting many fellow Charger coaches and teachers involved, which sparked the idea of a virtual 5K run/walk from North Montgomery teach Amanda Boyd.
“Just an event to get people energized, and engaged, and out being active,” Thompson said.
The event is set for Saturday, April 11, and encourages all participants to post their workouts to social media.
With school canceled for the remainder of the academic year, and all athletic facilities closed, Thompson wants to make sure Charger athletes are ready when the time comes to return.
“We are just continuing to send workouts out to both the football and track kids, even though the season has been canceled,” he said. “Encourage them to stay active, because one of these days the plan is to get back to things and you’re going to need to be in shape and ready to go.”
