Track and Field – OC’s track team has started practicing for the upcoming season. For the uninitiated track and field is made up of three basic parts; jumping events, throwing events and running events, which is further broken down into short, middle and long distances. Toss in a couple of hurdle events and OC’s track and field team will be competing in 16 track and field events.
Typically OC’s track and field team is made up of about 25 girls and 35 boys. Coaches Bob Finch and Ron Minish (boys and girls respectively) are responsible for keeping everything straight. With 16 events and roughly 60 competitors that’s no small task. OCHS Sports Blog caught up with Coach Finch last week to discuss track and field for this season.
As it turns out, Region 8-AA is usually the strongest track and field region in the state said Coach Finch. For example, last year Elbert County won the state but didn’t win the region, coming in second behind North Oconee and OC was third. Region 8-AA won nine of the 16 events at state last year. Because the region is so competitive pole vaulter Dillion Evans, who came in ninth in the region meet, did far better than many of the kids at the state meet from other regions.
To help alleviate this problem, that is, leaving good athletes at home, this year, after the region tournament, there will be a sectional tournament like they do in wrestling. Instead of the top two in each event advancing from the region event the top four will advance to the sectional event. Coach Finch feels that this will allow more OC competitors to advance further up the competition ladder.
“We had a lot of third place finishers at the region meet last year,” said Coach Finch. “If we could have moved them out [meaning moving them to the new sectional meet which takes the top four of an event to state, OC would have had a better chance of getting more kids to the state meet] we could have gotten more kids to the state level.”
Track and field is like wrestling with regards to competing in meets throughout the season. It’s all practice until the region meet. No one is keeping an official score for GHSA region standing purposes until the region meet. For the region meet Coach Finch is allowed two entries per event. Usually it’s the two top performers for each event during the season. Coach Finch emphasizes to his team that during the regular season it’s okay if you don’t do so well as long as you’re improving. It’s not like losing a region baseball game where it’s counted against the team for region standing purposes.
Coach Finch has several returning people that he’s looking for big things from. Aubry Fearnow, who placed third at the region in throwing events is back, Dee Dee Fleeming and KiKi Presley both are returning runners. Hannah Murphy is an up and coming pole vaulter. Latroia Royal and Trenetta Smith, whom you will remember were varsity basketball players over the winter, are good runners from the middle school. Caroline Hansford will be back in the triple jump.
On the boys side Coach Finch mentioned Kendrick Presley as a returning runner and Maurice Freeman, who didn’t compete last year, but cleared 6’6” in the high jump his freshman year and who is arguably the fastest runner in the school, will compete in the 200 and 400 meter sprints as well as the relays. Josh Jarrells is back and he’s a good 200/400 meter runner. Sherman Williams is back as well, and Justin Whitman (Whitman moved on from the wrestling sectionals to the state meet next weekend at Gwinnett Area.) will be with the team in the 800 meters and the mile.
[If you are a track and field competitor or a parent of one of these kids reading this story and your name wasn’t mentioned no slight was intended. As in all these kinds of stories interview time is limited and mentioning the positives of 60 kids in impractical. Not to mention that asking for names really puts a coach on the spot.]
Unlike, say, football, where there is a coach for almost every position track is just the opposite. There are only two coaches for 16 events. Coach Finch points out that many times track athletes are expected to drill and train on their own. “When I tell them that I want them to do something so many times I expect it to happen,” said Coach Finch. “If they want to improve they will. As a program you want to push for region and state honors. But for each individual kid it comes down to him or her against the clock or the tape measure. Can I do it just a little bit better this time than last time? Not everybody is going to be a state level competitor. But if they improve from the first of the season to the last, that’s all I ask.”
Coach Finch said that Elbert, Jefferson, North Oconee and OC are the big dogs in the region. North Oconee has won the region two years in a row and OC was second two years ago on the boys side. The girls side saw North Oconee win the region but Coach Finch said that some of the northern teams, Rabun and Dawson Counties had good girls teams as well as Hart.
Next year’s region, Coach Finch says, will make it easier for OC especially getting Elbert and North Oconee out of the way. “We’ve run with Putnam, Greene and Washington-Wilkes,” said Coach Finch, “so we know a lot about them. We are as good if not better than them so we should do well against them. We still have Jefferson but Elbert and North Oconee moving up to AAA is a benefit.
“We feel like we have a good many boys and girls who are pretty good. If they work hard and do all the right things they will do good, and if you have enough of them doing good then you’ll do good as a team. I know quite a few of them are excited about the season. We are trying to do some things we haven’t done in the past, take them to some bigger more prestigious events. I want our kinds to understand they are as good as anybody. I want them to train that way and think that way and that they can run with the Atlanta schools and we’ve scheduled meets to do just that.”
One such meet is the Coaches Invitational to be held at Georgia Tech. It is a mixed high school/college meet and Coach Finch thinks the team will be excited with the venue. Another meet will be in Myrtle Beach, SC. Both meets have qualification standards that competitors must meet before they can go, but Coach Finch thinks that many of OC’s track and field team will qualify. Plus Coach Finch hopes that those kids that are on the qualifying bubble will work hard to improve so they can go, too.
Coaches Finch and Minish are optimistic about this year’s track season and are looking forward to great things from Oglethorpe’s athletes.
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