“The track team is getting a lot smaller than it has been in the past years,” stated senior and captain Audrey Franchett, a hurdler on South’s track and field team. Recently, the team has lost several of its seniors, who left for various reasons. That has left the team very freshmen- and sophomore-heavy.

“There were many seniors when the season started,” said senior Jonah Stuart, a sprinter on the team. “It really did diminish over time.” Track coach Mark Gross said the team is now “about 85% underclassmen.”

At the beginning of the season, everyone had high hopes for the team, but the loss of so many seniors has been tough. “They were all our strong runners. We were supposed to go to state,” senior and captain Isaiah Reff said about the team.

Despite the loss, the team is holding strong. Stuart said, “We’re actually doing pretty good. If we didn’t have all these seniors leave, we probably would have been way better, but we’re holding up really well.”

Franchett agreed, adding that, “We’ve been making up for them and for their absence. And it’s nice because a lot of the younger runners are getting a chance to run a lot more and they’re improving really fast.”

Sophomore Clara Wildenauer is an example of this. “Last year, me and my friends didn’t really work all that hard and we were actually called the freshmen slackers,” Wildenauer said. “This year, I’ve kinda buckled down.” She explained that the lack of seniors has forced her to change her attitude towards track.

With so few seniors and so many underclassmen, the younger runners are getting a chance to run at a higher level than they otherwise would have been able to. “It’s a super young team, which is in a way good because then they’ll have a lot of time to grow as runners and as a team,” said Franchett.

Gross explained, “It’s just kind of the cycle. A lot of the times you’ll build and you’ll get your stars and you look good and they graduate. It’s called rebuilding. It’s a cycle and everyone goes through it.”

Still, even with an optimistic future, the present remains frustrating for the seniors who continue. “Losing seniors who know what they’re doing is kind of hard. Our chemistry is kind of ruined because we’ve all been running [together] since freshman year and that just kind of went down the drain,” said Reff. “When you are in relays, it’s kind of frustrating when you have a new person to relay every week and you have to redo everything and it doesn’t go smoothly.”

With the lack of seniors and the limited number of coaches, those who remain are offered a new opportunity. Often they are called upon to lead the team directly. “We don’t have a hurdlers coach this year so me and the other hurdling captain, we’ve taken on a lot of responsibility, like teaching the kids who want to do hurdling how to do it,” explained Franchett. Although they are both confident with their hurdling ability, this task can prove to be difficult. “We’re not supposed to be coaches,” said Franchett.

“Every Thursday and Friday our jumping coach can’t be there, so we just run practices,” said Reff. “Sometimes we just go with sprinters. Sometimes we just go hard by ourselves.”

Reff described the predicament as challenging, but rewarding. “I feel like I’m doing a good thing by helping other runners. I know when I was a freshmen I didn’t really have senior role models to help me out. I feel that all the seniors who are still running are involved with all the underclassmen and people that haven’t run before.”

While, according to Franchett, Southwest has a good distance team and Washburn has a good sprinting team, “South kind of changes a lot. Some years we have really good distance, some years we have really good field. I guess you could say it’s [been] kind of a good year to kinda figure out what we’re doing.”

With so many young runners, the team can go in many different directions. “We’re figuring out what works for us and who can run what,” said Stuart.

As time wears on, South is starting to figure that all out, and the future looks bright. “In the next few years, I feel like South will be really strong. We have a good distance team and a lot of new sprinters and hurdlers,” said Reff.

Stuart summed up the season in one sentence, “We’re not as good as we used to be, but a lot of the underclassmen are holding up and doing a really good job.”