Greenwood track team has a lot of potential this season

The group may be smaller than when they last appeared on the track, but this year’s track team from Greenwood has a lot of potential coming into this season. A lot of new faces are a part of the team, and with a lot of big meets at the start of the season, the group has a lot to grow into as they return.

There are 15 members of this year’s track team, which is being coached by Steve Geisthardt. From previous years, the numbers are slightly down, but given the environment, he said it is to be expected.

“We’ve been looking good,” he said. “We lost a lot of people last year and had four foreign exchange students, we don’t have that this year. We have a lot of new athletes, four that have a full season of track under their belts.”

With only a few members of the team with any prior experience, Geisthardt said there is a lot for them to learn and adjust to this season. In past years, he said new recruits would often get a chance to experiment and find their place at the early indoor invitationals. They don’t have that this year, and with some of their biggest meets occurring right away, it sets the team back.

“We don’t know what to expect for many of them, though there is promise,” he said. “It’s too early to really tell, a whole bunch of them are trying different spots. The actual season starts a lot sooner than in other years, there’s no two or three weeks of indoor meets to experiment more.”

Because of the weird way the schedule turned out, Geisthardt said the team will be flip-flopping its approach to meets and events, playing to individual’s known strengths at the early big meets and then allowing them to experiment more during the middle of the season when they have less competition.

“Our first three meets are big meets, our biggest until sectionals,” he said. “We had open gym a lot beforehand (to try to prepare for the season). Some got a head start, others didn’t. As a team it feels harder starting this season. It’s going to be focus on one or two things at first and branch out during smaller meets, experiment less at the start of competition.”

For a few athletes — those who have former track experience — their strengths are known. Geisthardt said seniors Nate Revier and Rylan Lindner as well as junior Avrey Horvath have shown considerable skill in their earlier years in the sport, and expects them to perform well as the season goes along.

“Nate Revier, he’s one of two seniors we have,” he said. “He’s grown a lot since sophomore year physically. We had been looking forward to last year to see what he could do, but that didn’t happen. I hope he’s grown in the right ways to see what he can do. Avrey Horvath is a junior this year. He qualified as a freshman in the 3200m, this year he qualified for state in cross country, he should be doing the same thing track in the 1600m and the 3200m. Rylan Lindner is our other senior. She’s a very good cross country runner, so we moved her up to middle distance, I expect she will do well in that.”

When the late season begins in the last part of May and into June, Geisthardt said the athletes are going to have a different experience than they had in years prior. Weather patterns are different from month to month, and with the season ending later than ever before, the athletes will be facing higher temperatures and more humidity.

“It’s going to be interesting,” he said. “You have different weather conditions in June than in April or March. It’s going to be much more of a problem for distance runners in the heat. When it gets hotter, the longer events get harder. That will be an interesting development.”

The Greenwood track team has two seniors this year in Nathan Revier and Rylan Linder. Juniors make up the main body of the team, consisting of Kia Abel, Anna Aichele, Sierra Myers, Ashtin Palms, Nicholas Briski, Lauren Ingold, Riley Gardner and Avrey Horvath. The team also has four sophomores: Katlund Etlicher, Tora Degenhardt, Christian Thomas and Caden Arteman. Cody Eckes is the team’s only freshman.

The Indians participated in their first meets on April 27 in Colby, on April 29 in Auburndale, at Marathon on May 3 and at Gilman on May 4. They compete again on May 6 in Neillsville and on May 11 in Spencer.

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO