By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline track and field teams will head to Phillipsburg on Thursday for this year’s regional meet, hoping to set themselves up well for state later this month.
The boy’s team will enter this regional as favorites, following their first back-to-back league championships in program history.
“We were very excited about that finish,” SES head coach Wade Caselman said. “We knew that our seniors and juniors would lead the way but our underclassmen really stepped up and got us some points in events where we weren’t expecting to score a ton and we were really pleased with them.”
On the boy’s side, Southeast will have to contend with the likes of Hoisington, Smoky Valley, Scott City, and Beloit for a limited number of tickets to state in a loaded Phillipsburg regional.
All eyes will be on Chase Poague and Dylan Sprecker, who have dominated every event that they have entered this season. Poague will appear in both hurdle events and the 100m dash while Sprecker looks to sweep the 800, 1600, and 3200.
SES should see the likes of Michael Murray, Nakari Morrical-Palmer, Omar Calzada, and the distance trio of Levi Allen, Cayden Walker, and Damion Jackson punch their tickets to the season finale as well.
While those upperclassmen have stolen the show all season long, the Trojans are also looking forward to an opportunity for some of their rising stars to steal some entries after a strong showing at league.
“The depth that we’ve found this year will be huge in a regional like this,” Caselman said. “Those younger kids like Tate Nurnberg have been coming on strong in these last few weeks and we’re hoping to see more good things from them.”
On the girl’s side, a strong core of distance runners anchored by Jentrie Alderson, Ashley Prochazka, and Abby Commerford will look to make an appearance in Wichita as well after strong seasons on the track.
“We’re taking nine girls to regionals and we’re hoping to get as many individuals qualified as we can,” he said. “We feel strong about our distance runners, our 4x8, and Ivie Douglas in the discus.”
The top four finishers in each event will be sent through to the state meet in Wichita on May 27-28, a meet that the SES boy’s team hopes will give them an opportunity to repeat as state champions.
For continuing coverage of SES track and field all postseason long stay tuned to the Salina Post.