SPRING OUTLOOK: Park Hill South Girls Track

In 2012, the Park Hill South girls track team will defend their conference title with a handful of returning varsity athletes who saw success last year. While the Panthers weren’t able to qualify anyone for the state meet, they return two athletes that came up just short of qualifying in Blake Reser and Audrey Rothers, who will be a core piece of the 2012 team in events like the long jump, triple jump, hurdles, and a mix of different relays.

Hannah Carlson in the hurdles, Taylor Termini in sprints, Tia Square in jumps, and pole vaulter Kelsey Sadler also return for the Panthers along with a handful of seniors who will fill in to play a role throughout the upcoming season. While Coach Andy Keefer has some key athletes returning, the unique thing about his teams from past years aren’t stellar performances from standout athletes, but ones which exceeded expectations and led to overall solid team results.

“The team stepped up really well (last year),” Keefer said. “We’re lucky to where we’re usually pretty deep and we get a lot of second, third, and fourth place finishes. We had a lot of people step up for us.”

A lot of those finishes created the motivation for improvement, which led many athletes to put in the time working in the offseason. Work they hope pays off in the form of a potential opportunity to compete in college.

“We had a lot more commitment in the offseason with people getting into it. We’ve got a couple girls looking to do this in college and move to the next level in it,” Keefer said.

While the Panthers hope to build on their success in the jumps and hurdles, there is plenty of potential throughout the events to propel Park Hill South to another competitive season.

“Our jumps are probably our strength right now. We’ve got some freshmen that look pretty quick so we’ll see how that progresses, but we won’t be able to tell until down the road,” Keefer said. “By the time we get to the Kearney meet, we’ll have a better idea of where people are going to be. We have a lot of other people potentially, but no one who has quite shown that yet.”

With the defense of their conference title on the line in the Suburban Conference, Raytown South appears to be the Panthers most clear challenger to the start the season. Park Hill South starts the season with a dual meet against Park Hill March 27^th.