Although Winter sports are in full swing, Spring athletes are not taking it easy. Track and Field’s wide range of events has athletes of all types preparing for their moment in the sun, and head coaches Joe Line and Cory Christnovich have high hopes for the upcoming season.

For boy’s head coach Joe Line, the season is all about building off of their previous successes. “When I first started, I was a jumps coach,” said Line, who has been coaching track for the past five years. “That was one of the first years in a long time that the team won conference. And so that was the first of now five conference championships in a row.” His goal for this year? To win a sixth. To coach Line, though, his greatest achievement is turnout. “The most successful thing we’ve done is kept the numbers high,” he said, referencing past seasons. “We usually have anywhere between 110 and 125 kids out for track, and that’s consistent… that’s one of the bigger successes we’ve had.”

For this coming season, Line is looking for strong performances out of his upperclassmen. “Aaron Richardson is a senior this year, he went to state for two events last year, and he can do multiple events, and score in them as well.” Line said. Richardson scored at state last year for the long jump and the 400-meter relay.
In addition, Line expects a lot out of his distance team. “One athlete I want to point out that has been to state twice already before his senior year is Jack Rader… he had some injuries going into state last year, so we’re looking for him to be healthy and have a good year,” he added, “And Caleb Easton has put up some impressive times.”

Although for now, he believes distance events are Middleton’s strength, a key goal for Line in the coming years is to round out the team’s performance. He predicts that this year will see an improvement in times in the short distance for many athletes. “Our sprint group is young but very talented. we have a lot of sophomores and juniors that are going to step up.”
So how is Line planning on improving past success? He believes more consistent lifting will bolster the team’s performance. “We’re going to be a little more consistent but also bring in new lifts, and ideas, and ways to train, and make it not painful but a routine that we do every day in track.”

On the girl’s side, head coach Cory Christnovich is looking to improve personal records and perform well at conference. “I get really excited seeing girls getting PR’s,” he said, “regardless of it it’s just a tenth of a second in the hundred or 20-30 seconds in the mile.”
This year at conference, Christnovich is looking to beat last year’s performance. “I think our goal should be to be better than we were last year at conference. Last year we were fourth, we were 2 points out of third and about 15 points out of second place. I think we can definitely look to make the improvement.”

He has a lot of athletes he hopes will make his goal a reality. In the distance crew, Christnovich is looking for seniors Erika Rader, Margaret Patterson, and Charlotte Sue to perform well in the coming season, and in sprinting, he expects a good showing from Hadley Braaten and Tai Pritts. He also has high hopes for the triple jump. “Jen McGinnis and Sitori Tanin both qualified for state last year in the triple jump and are both back; I’d expect them to continue to improve and have PR’s regularly.” He also mentioned the 4×400 meter relay team, which consisted last year of Juliana Castillo, Alyssa Lemirande, Hadley Braaten, and Marie Mayers. “We were 13th last year at state, ran about a 4:00 flat,” he said. “I think this year we can make finals in the 4×400, which would be great.”

As the first practice approaches on March 5th, Track and Field has another chance to display Middleton’s wide range of talents as an athletic program. Athletes and coaches alike will be looking with high hopes to the 2018 track and field season.