CHISHOLM—The one thing Chisholm High School boys track coach Frank Cerar is doing is building a strong program.
Cerar is hoping that bigger numbers translates into a successful 2024 season, and he’s certainly off to a good start in that direction.
“We have a lot of kids enjoying track in Chisholm, and we’re hoping that bears fruit in the long term,” Cerar said. “We find the things where kids can be good at. We want a lot of success and a lot of fun.
“We like to win.”
Cerar should see some success with seniors Hayden Roche, Gavin Thompson, Ben Thompson, Austin Pratt and Joseph Novak.
Roche is still recovering from an injury he suffered in football, but Cerar will try to mix him in whenever he’s healthy enough to compete.
“Ben has picked up the pole vault, and hopefully, he’ll be in the 300 hurdles,” Cerar said. “Gavin will be competing in the short hurdles (300), and he’s doing well. Hayden, he’s working out with us, and that’s cool to see.
“We have him at practice, and he has a good vibe being around everyone. Hopefully, he can run some races at the end of the year, or at least do as much as he can handle. We also have a bunch of ninth-graders showing some good stuff.”
The junior class consists of Nathan Splinter, Nick Lange, Daeren Konstad, Ethan Lauzen, Pace Yukich and Braden Thronson.
“Braden is our second-fastest kid,” Cerar said. “He keeps growing in the high jump. Last year, we threw him into a bunch of different events. He’ll be this year and next year. Ethan will be solid for us.
“We have an interesting mix going into this year. We have some established kids, then we’ve recruited some junior high and ninth-graders.”
The sophomore class has Gavyn Antonutti and Daniel Perpich, and rounding out the team are Orry Frost, Colton Dragony, Michael Chambers, Charles Pearson, Riley Podlogar and Carter Pender.
What will be a strength of this year’s team?
“We’ve got a couple of good jumpers in, and our throwers have been working hard,” Cerar said. “We’ve been working on our speed and explosiveness, but we don’t have a lot of distance runners.
“We don’t want to take our sprinters away from that. We’ll be solid in the hurdles, but it’s tough for me to have distance kids.”
To that end, Cerar is trying to get some more crossover from the cross country team.
“It’s going to get better in the coming years,” Cerar said. “What we’re trying to do is put an emphasis on building more than a couple of kids that might be good.
“We want kids solid in a lot of things to compete for the team. I push for that personally with the kids. We’ll have a team-first approach, then we’ll try to get kids to the sections and state. We want to make better athletes for our other sports, too. We’ll put an emphasis on that.”
Getting healthy will be an important part to succeeding at the end of the season.
“We have some ticky-tack injuries, so we need to get everybody at full strength,” Cerar said. “We want to get as many kids to sections as possible, but we want them to have a fun time.
“We have over 35 boys this year, so that’s pretty good. We want to continue that vibe.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0