Coaches Corner with Girl’s Track Coach John Barthels
Hawk Crawfish Boil Support Canyon Lake Track & Field
The ReSporter: Tell me how you see the future for this Girls team….I see a lot of good things coming from this group of ladies.
Coach Barthels: “We are a young team, we are only graduating a couple of seniors. 2 of the 3 relay teams consisted of 3 freshmen and a sophomore with pretty good JV times in those same events. We had a group of girls that worked hard in practice and competed on meet days with almost everyone improving on their times at each meet. At district we finished 2nd as a JV team with only 11 girls. Varsity girls set records in the 4X100, and the Long Jump. I see the future looking bright with a few girls already asking if they can run track this year. Obviously the more girls we can have come to track the better we can be.
The ReSporter: What did you take from the District Meet?
Coach Barthels: “From the district meet I took that we are competitors. We improved on our mile relay 6 seconds in order to help us qualify for the area meet. Bailey Drum improved in triple jump, we had Mariah Ellis run the 3200 for the first time all year and qualify for the area meet and we had Skylar Hurst improve her triple jump by 2 feet to qualify for the area meet. The JV girls all improved their times in the relays, Felicity Neistemski improved her 800 time by more than 19 seconds to win the 800 at district, improved her 400 time by 3 seconds to get second in the 400. We have some girls that are competing to the best of their abilities and that is all I can ask.”
The ReSporter: You had some girls that improved on their times greatly from what they had done previously. Is that by design or is it those competition juices coming out when pitted against other district schools?
Coach Barthels: “We set a goal to work hard in practice and give their all. Obviously going against bigger schools in all of the early meets paid off for us when it came time to district.”
The ReSporter: The Mile Relay improved their time by 6 seconds, they will need a result like that again to be in the running for going to Regions…what or how do you coax the girls to improve on what they did in the district meet?
Coach Barthels: “We have set a goal to try and take a little more time off for each girl. We know what time we need to run and they are going to give their all and see what happens.”
The ReSporter: You can change the four girls on the relay team as much as you would like, is that correct?
Coach Barthels: “Yes, you can change your relay teams each time they qualify for the next round if you will, but we are going to dance with the one that brought us this far and see what happens. I am proud of the way we competed all year and everyone did what they had to do for the team. I am looking forward to the future of the girls track team here at CLHS.”
