Excitement surrounding Tiger Track is nothing new, as Coach reminds us that “Rich Hill has a rich history of track and field going back 25 plus years”, and the success continued last year as well. Damon said that the Tigers had “a great building year with a young team”. And that young team was able to see some success as Damon went on to say “we had a sophomore medal in pole vault at state, and two relays qualify for state on the boys side. We also had our girls 4x400 and 4x800 relays make it to sectionals”.
The Tigers numbers are outstanding this year as many students are looking to help carry the reputation of the program. The team will see many returning faces as well as some new ones, as coach informs us, “we have a large number of underclassmen this year with a handful of great seniors that have been in the program since JR high. Everyone has a role in the program whether it is a freshman that is a new face and is going to push someone to get better, or a returning state medalist who looks to finish higher than they did last year. We have a really good sophomore group that is really eager to make some major improvement this year and will help make all of our relays better. Our throwers are young, but they are on the verge of showing their potential. We also have a great group of freshmen who are going to push them in the years to come on the boy’s side. We only have one Sr. girl and we only lost one girl from last year, so we have high hopes that our relays will improve over last year’s success.”
Coach Damon continued to speak a little bit about the challenges that may present themselves this year for the Tigers. He talked briefly about just the normal early season muscle weakness that is a common struggle, as well as the fact that they still have one lady who is still recovering from a basketball injury. Damon seems hopeful that if his team can stay healthy, they will give any team in the conference if they can remain healthy. The WEMO Conference that the Tigers are a part of is one of the better track conferences in the state when it comes to class 1 & 2, whoever, the Tigers look to compete in every match. Damon commented, “I think that we will have a good showing if we stay healthy. In the sport of track and field is the absolute most important thing. On the boy’s side we have multiple returning Conference Champions that hope to repeat. The girls are planning on concentrating on their relays, and hope to improve their finishes from last year. Our district assignments have not been released yet, so not sure how we stack up there yet. Districts are always our main target as far as the season goes, because without a great showing at districts the season is over.”
Excitement is coming in bunches for this Tigers Track team, Damon said, “To be honest I am always excited for track season. Seeing all of the kiddos improve in speed, strength, and attitude is what it’s all about. If we have any success beyond that it’s just a plus. However, every year each athlete writes down to personal and two team goals and turns them in to us coaches, so there might be some bigger goals to reach.”
The Tigers will kick off their track schedule on March 23rd in Butler.
