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Chieftains condition for next week’s Lansing meet

By Keith Burner - | Mar 28, 2001

The Tonganoxie High School track team’s first meet falls just eight days after spring break, and coaches say how well the team performs at that meet will depend on how hard they worked during that break.

“We’re not starting over we assume that everyone has kept up on their conditioning,” said Coach Bill Shaw. “Hopefully they’ve worked like we instructed them to, unless they want to lose what work they put in before the break.”

Coach Phil Williams said he agreed, adding that this week could be a tough one for those who didn’t work over the break.

“Well, they’re supposed to be (running), but at this stage I can’t tell if they did or they didn’t,” Williams said Monday. ” If they didn’t, they’ll be hurting today after practice.”

Williams said that was because he planned on doing exhausting sprint work to get the team used to the pace it will have to run at meets.

It’s first meet is 4 p.m. Tuesday at Lansing.

And coaches say that the Lansing meet would be a good test of the team’s strengths.

“Probably after the first meet we should know were we are as a team,” Shaw said. “Lansing should be a pretty good indicator of where we are.”

Going into the meet, the team will field several strong events returning from last year.

Williams said the strongest events on the boys’ side should be the pole vault, javelin and all the middle distances.

He said that besides the javelin throwers Andrew Miller and Tony Miller, Chieftain throwers were basically untested, as two of the team’s top shot putters didn’t come out for the team.

“A lot of throwers haven’t had a lot of experience, but I hope they’re able to come out and do well,” Williams said.

Williams said he was optimistic about the team’s chances at doing well at Lansing.

“Lansing will be tough teamwise,” Williams said. “I hope we have a chance to be first or close to first at this meet.”

For the girls team, which lost three seniors who brought home a lot of gold in their four years, Shaw said that he wouldn’t know much about this team’s strengths until after this first meet.

He said, though, that the team should be fairly strong in several areas, especially hurdles and the field events.

The team lost two of its top sprinters to graduation, so the short distances probably won’t be what they were last year, Shaw said.

He added that freshman Katie Jeannin has already proven herself to be one of the team’s top middle-distance runners.