The ‘Year of COVID’ has been a year like no other, and it has affected nearly every facet of our lives. High school sports are certainly no exception, and the spring season was completely cancelled last year, and the summer ball teams faced an abbreviated season but the schools that wanted to at least did get a chance to compete.
That said, it became a challenge to put these team preview stories together. I had no returning state qualifiers to talk about and no past times or distances for track, along with no returning scores for golf. I also had no returning letterwinners photos. It has been decided that, at least for this year, I will put what I have on the teams into one story.
As the spring season student-athletes excitedly get back to work again, one can only wonder who will emerge as the leaders or maybe as a surprise athlete that the coach couldn’t see coming? It will seem almost like starting over from scratch, but rest assured the athletes will be ready to give it everything they have!
According to veteran Cowgirl track head coach Monty Harker, he only has 20 girls out this year but still feels there should be good things ahead for them. “They are all pretty much equal, so it’s better for us to have quality than quantity,” said Harker. “I have pretty much all sprinters, so that is going to be our best events and we should do fine there. We will also be strong in the throwing events.”
On the flip side, he feels they will struggle in the distance events. “Right now I only have two runners for the 800,” said the coach. “We are really thin there. From what I have seen from all the state times it looks like everyone is behind from having a year off. Everyone is terribly out of shape for track.”
He feels he has some good state experience back from the senior class. That includes Kendall Lienemann and Raven Kinnetz, who both return from the 4×4 relay and Kendall from the low hurdles as both events went to Des Moines in 2019. “They should help motivate some of the younger girls,” said Harker. “Everyone just needs to get back in track shape. The teams that can do that in the next couple weeks are the ones that will be successful.”
He expects Kendall and Raven to have strong chances of returning to the blue oval, and also likes Morgan Middleton’s chances of qualifying in the shot and discus. “She should even break the school record in both,” said the coach. “I think everyone who is out feels that they got robbed of a season.” He also admits not having any idea of what he has from his freshmen and sophomores since neither got to run a year ago.
Harker said it will also be hard to predict what the conference will look like after a year off. “I do expect Humboldt and Algona to battle it out for the team title,” he said. “They both have good numbers and nice facilities to work in. Our goals will remain the same as always as we work to qualify as many events to state as we can.”
Ben Lindaman takes over the Cowboy track & field team and recently welcomed 25 total kids out for this year. He especially likes the interest among the freshmen and sophomores, which makes up a total of 19 in those two classes alone. Isaiah Nebbe is coming off a state cross country appearance, and will be looked at to continue his leadership role this spring. He will hold down the one and two-mile distance events.
“Our strength (of a lot of youth) is also our weakness,” said Lindaman.”The sophomores have some proven talent, but we are going to have to use a lot of those younger kids to fill our lineup for meets. They will be competing against many seniors and juniors in the conference. A key for us will be in continuing to improve individually meet to meet. I wish we had more juniors and seniors out, but we’ll go with what we have and look for improvement.”
As he embarks on his 37th season in charge of the Cowboy golf program, Pat O’Brien has pretty much seen it all and yet even he isn’t sure what to expect after a previous season was wiped out by the pandemic.
“Our lack of competitive rounds will be our team weakness this year,” said the veteran mentor. “We really missed last year, not so much for wins or losses but just because we needed the competition. In that regard, the competition within our own team should be great. Whether we can do that at the right level, and translate that to meets against our opponents, remains to be seen.”
O’Brien returns only two players with any varsity playing time, and that was one round each. Juniors Garrett Seaba and Elic Fjetland will have to not only jump right into a leadership role, but will also be looked at to shoot consistent low rounds until the rest of the guys gain some experience. “I would sure think they have an upper hand on making a big difference this year, but there are also a good number of others that are looking like they could push for spots too,” said O’Brien.
With all that said, O’Brien feels the key to their season is seeing how quickly his team can transfer their athletic skills in the game to being able to score low. “If these guys can thrive on the competition for spots and not get caught up in who makes it one meet to the next, in other words all in for the goal, we can be competitive this year and win next year,” said the coach.
He admits having no idea what the conference will look like, but he’s very familiar with the tradition. “I still think the NCC has proven to be one of the best conferences for golf in the state and so I’m expecting that to continue,” said O’Brien. “We enjoy the chance to compete at that level.” He also admits the team is not hurting for facilities, and they truly appreciate the use of those. “We have three courses that welcome us and an indoor facility that accommodates our team, along with wonderful support from the administration,” said O’Brien. “We have no excuses and I love it that way!”
Cowgirl golf coach Denny March did not respond with information on his team.
