The Girls Track and Field team plans to out-run and throw their opponents in hopes to send more girls to the Nebraska State Track Championships as their season opens.

Out of the eight girls that qualified for State from Central last year, five of those girls will be returning to train and run faster in competitions in preparation for State. Hosted at Burke every year, The NSAA Track and Field Championships is the largest high school track meet in Nebraska.

With runners returning who last year qualified at the State track meet, Head Coach, Trent Lodge looks forward to a season full of success and improved performance from last year. This is Lodge’s twentieth year as a coach for Central’s track and field team.

Lodge pushes his girls to train in the preseason that way they are primed for the season. Spring sport practice began on February 26th, for track, Lodge conditions to, “get the girls into shape, to prevent injuries we do a lot of cardio and core workouts,” he said.

Lodge said, “We have a lot of new team members this year, we look to improve on last years’ performances and try to qualify as many girls as we can for the state meet.” A newer team compared to a team full of upperclassmen gives more time for runners and throwers to become developed, which means that in two years the team could potentially be better than they are now.

Like any sport, practice is a necessity for performing well, and the same rings true for track and field, “they have to show up to practice every day, they have to work hard every day, compete against each other, and put out the best performance that they can at meets,” said Lodge.
Track and field requires all parts of the team to perform well in order for the team to win. A team that has one strength will not win because the team includes each race or throwing event. “Our distance girls have done really well the past couple years, but we need to focus on field events, the jumps, sprints and throws,” Lodge said.

With track having different specialties for events, keeping the team together as a whole becomes more difficult than a sport which requires players to mostly have the same skill set. We try to keep the team as a whole but it is hard,” said Lodge, “but each group such as throwers and runners have their own community with leaders who do a great job.”

“I loved running track in high school, and it is not one that gets a lot of publicity,” said Lodge. Other than the state track meet, most competitions do not have bleachers packed full of spectators.

“I don’t try and micromanage, I try to get people who can coach and do well,” said Lodge. By doing this, he places a lot of trust in the assistant coaches to do their jobs well by providing the sort of support and technical assistance that runners need to improve.

With 75 girls currently signed up for track, there are more girls committed to track than last year. Because of this, Lodge believes that the team could succeed and qualify more girls for the State meet than last year.

“If anyone has any interest in track they should try-out,” Lodge said, “It is a great sport with a good group of students.”