Waukon girls track team fields five State qualifiers within 17 returning letterwinners
Left to right - Front row: Sydney Ross, Lauren Griffith, Meredith Lensing, Regan Wasson, Madison Snitker, Lauren Elliott, Erika Johnson. Second row: Nicole Campbell, Megan O’Neill, Zaida Bockman, Grace Blocker, Lanci Bulman, Laurel Keenan, Leah Riese, Audry Fahey. Third row: Lizabeth Waters, Dani Stock, Alexz Grampovnik, Brigid Berns, Karly Hemmersbach, Emily Brown, Brooke Wasson, Lauryn Behrend. Back row: Gabrielle Ewing, Holly Bosley, Cassy Carson, Tori Williams, Cayla Nolting, Rylea Nagel, McKenzie Cooper. Not pictured: Nicole Behrend, Claire Beyer, Callie Ferring, Katelynn Griffith, Morgan Van Ruler, Cassidy Byrnes, Kyara Dahlstrom, Lacey Mitchell, Emma Roe.
The Waukon girls track team returns both quantity and quality when it comes to varsity letterwinning experience heading into the 2016 season. Within a field of 17 returning varsity letterwinners from last spring, the Indians will benefit from the experience of five competitors who qualified for last season’s State Track Meet to help pace this season’s group of 38 young ladies who have reported for early-season duty.
“I feel that we have a very strong core group of runners returning from last year and we have a number of new participants that I feel will be able to make an immediate impact,” second-year Waukon girls track coach Bob Wasson said. “I am looking forward to getting on the track and seeing how we compare with other area schools.”
Those five State qualifiers include the trio of multi-year State Meet sprint relay competitors headlined by the senior pair of three-year qualifiers Nicole Behrend and Madison Snitker, as well as two-year qualifying junior Regan Wasson. That trio has qualified and competed together in that season grand finale each of the last two seasons with Lyvia Bulman, who graduated last May after a stellar high school track career and also anchored that crew to a new school record in the 4x200 relay last spring.
“We graduated Lyvia Bulman, who anchored all three of our State qualifying relays from last year,” Coach Wasson shared. “We will certainly miss her experience and leadership.”
Lyvia’s younger sister, Lanci Bulman, is a junior this season and competed with Behrend, Snitker and her older sister in the sprint medley relay that qualified for last spring’s season grand finale. She joins fellow junior Erika Johnson, a State Meet qualifier in the long jump last spring, in rounding out that list of most decorated veteran returnees.
“I am looking for the returning letterwinners to help lead the younger team members and to set good examples regarding our expectations for effort and our focus on improvement,” Coach Wasson explained. “I think that a number of girls can build upon the success that they had last year and they should be able to help the others improve also.”
In addition to those returning State qualifiers, Coach Wasson sees the returning experience in nearly every other facet of track and field competition as furthering the strength of this season’s squad. “Our shuttle hurdle relay improved dramatically as the season progressed last year and we bring most everyone back,” he shared. “I am hopeful that they can pick up where they left off last year and make similar improvements this season. I look for us to be more competitive in our throwing events. I think that our middle distance and distance events will also be improved.”
Nearly half of this season’s squad is made up of freshman competitors, making for an overall young make-up to this year’s squad but also offering some potential for considerable contributions to the Indian program. “It is still too early to tell, but I believe that we have added six or seven girls that will have an immediate impact upon the team,” Coach Wasson shared. “We are still a very young team, with a lot of girls that have not had a lot of varsity competition under their belts.”
Within that collection of returning experience and new potential, Coach Wasson hopes to reach some new heights for his program. “I would like to have more events qualify for the State Meet, finish higher in the conference standings, and maybe break another school record,” he offered. “The girls will have to work hard and improve from last year and, of course, we will need to stay healthy and injury free.”
Either helping or hindering those standards set for this season will be another staunch competition schedule featuring some of the strongest track and field programs and athletes in the entire state right here in the Tribe’s own Northeast Iowa Conference. “Decorah will be the favorites again this year, but after that I am not sure how the rest of the teams will finish,” Coach Wasson speculated about this season’s league result.
The Indians were scheduled to begin sorting out this season’s results with their season-opening competition at the Northeast Iowa Conference Indoor Meet at Luther College in Decorah Tuesday, March 22. The Tribe will then prepare for its first outdoor meet of the season, Tuesday, March 29 at Sumner-Fredericksburg.
