EAHS indoor track preview

Head Coach: Jeff Harnish, second season. Was the winter track head coach in the 2004 season.

Key returners: 19 returning athletes.
Harnish returns to the helm of the E-town winter track program after serving as head coach in 2004 and inherits a talented group of athletes.

There are 19 returners in all, and each of them brings something different to the team, but one thing they all have in common is experience and leadership, something Harnish said is very important.

“They are all key to the success of our program,” he said. “They are doing a great job getting our new athletes acclimated to the program and I expect them to be very successful at our indoor meets.”

Key Newcomers: 26 new athletes.
As deep and diverse as the returners are, there are even more new athletes to the winter program. Harnish said that many of them come from different sports backgrounds and that there are new athletes from every grade level on the team.

They will provide outstanding depth for the Bears this winter season and give E-town competitive, talented athletes in virtually every event it will compete in. That said, however, there will be an adjustment period for them. They’ll have to get used to the very short indoor season and have only a limited time to master their events before competing.

“I expect them to come together as a team, work hard at practice, learn their event and find success at the meet,” he said.

Key Losses: Caitlyn Eshleman, Caitlyn Fisher, John Romain.
E-town was not hit particularly hard by graduation last year, but it did lose three captains in Eshleman, Fisher and Romain.

Harnish said that their leadership was great and it will be missed. But it’s now up to the deep senior class of this year to step up into those leadership roles.

Strengths: Depth, distance.

According to Harnish, this is the largest winter track team that E-town has a record of. That means the Bears will have very good depth up and down the charts.

That depth should help them in scoring during meets, but it will also help them make each other better in practice, which should translate to success in the winter and spring track seasons.

E-town will also be very strong in its distance events. That success should stem directly from the very successful seasons that both the boys and girls cross country teams had in the fall. Leading the way for the distance events will be Dustin Horning, who qualified for the cross country state meet in the fall.

Weakness: Depth in sprints.
E-town does has some very talented sprinters on its roster, but they aren’t as deep in this area as Harnish would like. With the amount of possibilities that a large roster brings, that might change, but for now E-town will go in with a smaller number of sprinters.

Outlook: The winter track season is much different that the fall cross country season or the spring track and field season. There are only four meets and there are a limited number of entries in each of those.

“The main goal is to get as many kids competing as possible,” Harnish said.

And the team will also have to travel for each of its meets. The Bears would like nothing more than to be competitive at all four meets it competes in this season, but if nothing else, the sheer number of athletes on the roster should bode well for the spring season.