Girls go first
Heading into this week, Plymouth’s girls track team has had just one outdoor meet.
“This has put us behind most of our competition, especially in the conference,” said coach Paul Patrick. “Most of our opponents have had four or five outdoor meets. In (Plymouth’s lone meet April 18), I was very pleased with the performances of Morgan Hite in both the 1600m and 3200m runs. She is ahead of where she was a year ago. Holly Nifong won both hurdle races, but her toughest competition will come against Andrea Jackson of Memorial and Shawn Knafel of Wawasee (Monday). Leslie Swihart ran a great 400m and her time was impressive (just a second off of her regional time from last year) given the weather and the fact that it was her first 400 of the year.”
Besides yesterday’s make-up meet with Memorial and Wawasee, the Lady Pilgrims’ other competition this week is at Goshen on Thursday.
“Hopefully, we can get a win or two this week,” added Patrick. “Last year we lost to Warsaw and Northridge and finished 5-2 in the conference. This year we opened with them (losing to both) and if we run well, hopefully we can finish where we were a year ago.”
culver’S Alicia Allen has finished first in every one of her events (100, 200, 400, LJ), in every meet, except for one second. Liz West is also enjoying her share of success, winning every high jump event so far. She was a regional qualifier a year ago.
The Lady Cavaliers’ record stands at an impressive 8-1-1, including surprising wins over Winamac and Rochester.
LaVille has had only two dual meets so far. One highlight already though, is a new school record for the 3200m relay of Marci Gurtner, Erica Schmeltz, Jessica Heston, and Kelsey Bettcher (10:14).
“We have a pretty good team and should make a  good run at winning the NSC this year,” said coach Lee Dennie. “Hopefully our meets won’t get rained out this week!” 
The Lancers meet Culver and Jimtown at Jimtown today, then face NSC member John Glenn for a make-up meet Thursday in Walkerton. The Lancer Relays are next Monday.

Boys season officially on
Last Saturday’s Goshen Relays could be considered the unofficial start to the boys track season. Last year’s frigid conditions kept a lot of teams away, but this year it was a perfect day and 41 schools showed up.
Plymouth placed third in Class B (26 schools) at Goshen (read today’s Short Hops for more information). This week the Pilgrims travel to Northridge today for an NLC meet that also includes Concord, then make the trek to Wawasee on Friday.
Jordan Heim’s 52-flat 400m, Austin O’Connor’s unbeaten string in the 800, 1600 and 3200, John Bogucki’s hurdle times (15.2 in the 110 highs, 41.3 in 300 intermediates), Derek Traversa’s 47-2 effort in the shot put and Tyler Thornton’s 11.22 100m highlight the performances for John Glenn thus far.
“We are 2-1 right now. We lost to a strong Fairfield team, other than that, we are where we thought we could be,” said coach Jeff Kaiser.
Glenn, like all NSC teams, are eagerly anticipating the conference meet on May 9.
For Culver head coach Craig Hopple, the goals now are as they were a couple of weeks ago.
“We are continuing to look for improvement weekly,” he said. “So far I have been impressed by how well my kids have responded to the weather. They continue to want to compete on an everyday basis.
“I have been excited by how much Jesse Good (middle distance, relays) has done so far at this point in the season. He has really improved from last year. Stephan Vantwoud has also done very well in the distance events. Our throwers are all scoring on a regular basis as well.”
The Cavaliers will be part of the large field at the Lancer Relays next Monday and Hopple believes his team will be competitive there.
“The kids are really trying to work hard each week and their attitudes are remaining positive,” he added. “That is always a good combination to have no matter what sport you are coaching.”