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Junior high track team prepares for season

By Keith Burner - | Mar 28, 2001

When Tonganoxie Junior High School’s track team heads to its first meet April 10 at Monticello, it will not be short on practice or participants but it might be short on girls.

Warrior Track Coach Phil Jeannin said he was happy with the number of athletes who came out for the team, but added that he was surprised by how few girls were included in that number.

This year the team has about 90 members, with both seventh- and eighth grades represented equally.

But, though the ratio is one-to-one by grade, it is not by gender. Only about a third of the team, or 35, are girls.

“Some of the girls don’t seem to want to come out,” Jeannin said. “But that just happens sometimes.”

Jeannin blamed part of the lower-than-average female participation on a lower-than-average seventh-grade class size.

But, Jeannin said the low number of girls on this year’s team shouldn’t hurt the team nearly as much the loss of several strong eighth-grade runners from last year.

Jeannin said the team should be strong in the field events and in both middle- and long-distances. He said, however, that many of the shorter distance runners were unproven at this point.