Crawfordsville’s track and field team returns several athletes with varsity experience, and many more that have earned varsity experience in another sport, despite a lost spring season in 2020.
“The team is in a really good place, mentally and physically,” Crawfordsville coach Sean Gerold said. “The early warm weather has been a plus for us, because we’ve been able to spend a lot of time outside on the track running, instead of running around the top of the gym inside. This has definitely helped cut down on lower leg issues we usually see early in the year.”
On the boys’ side, the Athenians return Kaigen Fields, Nate Schroeter, Kyle Fruits, Hunter Hutchison, Ziair Morgan, Ian Hensley, and Arthur Ruano, while Shelby Greene, Melissa Mota-Huesca, and Halle Smith return on the girls’ side.
“We will rely heavily on this group to lead us,” Gerold said. “They all have a lot of experience competing, not only on the track, but in other sports as well. Our freshmen and sophomore classes have never competed in a varsity track meet, so we will need the leadership of the upperclassmen to help the younger groups with their nerves.”
While having that many returners will be beneficial, Gerold says the Athenians graduated a large senior class last season, and will have to rely on younger runners to step up.
“Last year, our depth was going to be one of our major strengths,” he said. “We graduated a very talented senior class. We will need to have younger members of our team step up this year, because we are not quite as deep as we were a year ago. So far in practice, our younger athletes are stepping up. We will be very young on the girls side this year. We will rely on our few veterans to lead the large number of new-comers.”
Gerold expects Noah Adair, Nick Busenbark, Tyson Fuller, Jordan Shrout, Mikale Willis and Alex Kellerman to step up on the girls’ side along with Olivia Biddle, Elyse Widmer, and Shea Williamson on the girls’ side.
Crawfordsville will open the season when they travel to Southmont today to open the 2021 season.
