Lady Eagles set to build on new foundations

Thursday, April 2, 2009
Brittany Cox

When a team loses standout players, it usually has others that are ready to replace them. But when it doesn't, the team finds itself rebuilding its foundations and that is what the Lady Eagles will be doing this year.

"We're young this year, very young," SPHS Coach Kate Atkinson said. "After losing Shannon Egold and Shelby Johnston to graduation, we're going to be trying to make up points.

"We have a lot of new faces this year, some that we still don't know. So it's going to be a trial and error period for us, but we're expecting good things this season," Atkinson said.

Even with the Lady Eagles being young, they're not all rookies and novices. They do have some talent coming back in Brittany Cox, Lauren Haynes, Rachel Egold, Amanda Lund and Shelby Hacker. All five of them return to the roster as seniors and earned the responsibility of anchoring the team down.

"Brittany has been real consistent in the discus for us so that will help," Atkinson said. "Hacker has been working hard in the weight room and is looking like she could do something in the shot put this season.

"We also have Kelsey Searles who will be throwing the shot this year for us and that will help out Cox, too," Atkinson said. "The throwers have been working really hard in practice and they're ready to see what kind of payoff they get."

The throwing events aren't the only events that the Lady Eagles are looking solid in.

"Our mid and distance runners will be our strongest competitors this season," Atkinson said. "They are going to be the anchor for the team. Lund, Egold and Haynes all have been looking strong. Egold will be running the 800-meter run for us while Lund and Haynes run the mile and two-mile events for us.

"Our 4x800 should be consistent this year, but our mid and distance runners will be anchoring," Atkinson said.

One thing Atkinson does know for sure, the 2009 track season is going to be a learning process for many or her athletes.

"It's definitely going to be a meet-by-meet process and I think that some of the new girls are already seeing improvement and seeing themselves making strides," Atkinson said. "It's just a matter of consistently improving and reaching our ultimate goal of being a successful track team. We got some foundations set, it's just building on those and seeing what our new people can do."

South Putnam opens the 2009 season a week from today when they travel to Northview for a three-way with the Knights and Owen Valley starting at 5 p.m.