With some nagging injuries and some academic issues, the Collins-Maxwell/Baxter boys’ track team may be a shadow of itself in the first few outdoor meets of the season, but the Raiders should have enough talent at the top and depth throughout the lineup to make another run at conference and district titles.
Meanwhile, the girls track and field team under coach Jerry Meinerts returns all four runners from both of its state qualifying relay teams and Payge Jurgens and Mikayla Eslinger also are returning state qualifiers. That, along with a talented group of underclassmen, should allow the Raiders to finish near the top of most meets this season.
On the links, both CMB squads will be paired up with golfers from Colo-NESCO this season. The boys will have a total of 20 golfers this season, while the girls team includes seven golfers.
On the soccer field, the Raiders will be in their second season with Colo-NESCO and seven players from West Marshall also join the squad. Leading the way will be C-N senior Tabitha Halferty and CMB senior Lexi Breon.
Boys Track
Former state champion Bryce Kemp was held out of the final few Raider indoor meets due to nagging injuries that longtime coach Neil Seales doesn’t expect to be serious.
Kemp won the 110-meter high hurdle title as a sophomore and a runner-up finish last year was one of four events the future Division I football player competed in.
And while the Raiders also return three other state qualifiers in seniors Patrick Girard (shot put), Mark Deutsch (3,200) and Joey Nissen (shuttle hurdle relay), CMB also lost two-time Class 2A shot put champion Zach Samson as well as state qualifiers Jordan Coughenour, Austin Moorman and Zach Huffaker off a squad that went 75-0 and placed seventh at the state meet.
Still, with 47 out this season, the Raiders should have plenty of depth to finish near the top of every meet.
It starts with Kemp. Aside from his second-place finish at state in the 110 highs, he also was fifth in the long jump and anchored the shuttle hurdle relay team to seventh.
“I know he is going to play football in college, but I think track is his best sport,” Seales said. “Hopefully we can get him healthy here soon and get him back out there.”
Girard was sixth in the shot put last year with a throw of 51 feet, 4.5 inches. He has already surpassed that toss during the indoor season and Seales thinks he has a lot left in him.
Nissen returns with Kemp in the shuttle hurdle. Other candidates to replace Coughenour and Moorman include senior Kyle Cather and juniors Brady Stover and Brad Ritter. All three should also make an impact in other events. Stover will long jump, Cather will be a part of a lot of relays and Ritter will run anything from a 200 to an 800.
Others who Seales expects to make an impact on this year’s team include future Central College distance runner Colin Thomson, senior shot and discus thrower Clayton Weltha, middle distance runners Jon Engle and Hunter Gunderson as well as Blake Coughenour and Dalton Birchmier.
“We won’t be as deep and won’t be as good at the top as we were last year, but I couldn’t be happier with the effort right now,” Seales said. “We have some potential, but we have a long ways to go before we are competitive.”
The Raiders get the outdoor season underway at 4:30 p.m. Monday at Greene County.
Girls Track
Junior Bridget Hurley highlights a strong crop of sprinters this season for the CMB girls track team.
Hurley advanced to the state meet in three events last year, but all three of her running mates in the 4x100 and sprint medley relay team also return.
Hurley was 16th in the 400-meter dash a year ago. She teamed up with now seniors Maddy Poage and Mackenzie Schmitz and junior Toni Spencer to take ninth in the sprint medley and 17th in the 4x100.
Meinerts said it was great to run fast times at state last year, but the foursome has some unfinished business to take care of.
“I see a little bit more drive with that group,” Meinerts said. “It was great to run fast, but we were so close to the top eight and to a school record. They have high expectations. They want to break the sprint medley relay time by 1-2 seconds.”
Jurgens, a junior, and sophomore Eslinger return after placing 18th in the shot put and 22nd in the discus at state, respectively, last season.
Aside from those two, the field events also could get a boost from Poage in the high jump and freshman Sailor Hinegardner and sophomore Megan Ritter in the long jump.
Hinegardner also will be counted on in the sprints and could help form a shuttle hurdle relay team that did not exist last year. Others who are competing for one of the four hurdle spots include freshman Brianda Bane, sophomore Sydney Ziesman, junior Carter Larson as well as Mary Schabilion and Winter Brown.
“We are further along as a team than we were at this point last year,” Meinerts said. “I like what I see with our competitiveness.The versatility that a lot of the girls have will help us, too.”
The sprints will be the bread and butter of this CMB team, but Meinerts said his two top runners from the cross country team, Brown and Heather Jessen, are also out.
Like the boys, the Raider girls kick off the outdoor season at 4:30 p.m. Monday at Greene County.
Girls Soccer
After scoring just 11 goals in 13 matches last season, a priority for CMB soccer coach Gary Cummings is to be more efficient and just plain better at the offensive end of the field.
The return of Halferty will help. So will the addition of seven players from West Marshall, six of which are freshmen.
“I hope that will be better offensively with some of the new players that we have out,” Cummings said. “If we are to have any success, they are going to have to step up.”
Halferty scored a team-high six goals and tallied a team-best 12 points last season. The only other returner who scored a goal was CMB junior Bre Botterbrodt, who tallied one goal a season ago.
“Last year, (Halferty) played forward,” Cummings said. “We are moving her to the center of the field this year and with her leadership, I am hoping the younger players will learn from her example.”
Breon returns for her final season in the goalie box. She had 374 saves last year during CMB’s 2-11 campaign.
The Raiders started out the year with a 1-0 win over South Tama County and also split its two matches with Prairie City-Monroe, winning 3-2 and losing 3-1.
CMB once again opens the season against the STC Trojans. This year, the match will be played in Maxwell beginning at 5:30 p.m. on April 7. The Raiders also host PCM at 5:30 p.m. on April 9.
With a sharing agreement with Colo-NESCO continuing and with the addition of West Marshall, the Raiders will play in Class 3A this season.
“We just need to continue to improve each practice and learn to work together as a team,” Cumming said. “We played a lot of freshmen last year. And with a year of learning the game and getting stronger, I look forward to a successful season.”
CMB Girls Golf
The golf teams also will play in Class 3A following the addition of Colo-NESCO to the boy’s program. The girls added Royal golfers last year.
This year’s girls team will be led by first-year head coach Eric Padget, who was the CMB boys coach and assistant girls coach last season.
Padget has seven golfers to work with, three from Baxter, two from Collins-Maxwell and two from Colo-NESCO. That means seven players are battling for six varsity spots.
Returning from last year’s team are CMB junior Courtney Clapper and senior Alex Hlavacek, who will likely battle it out for the No. 1 position. The other returner is Colo-NESCO sophomore Zoee Risdal.
“These girls have high expectations,” Padget said. “Courtney and Alex, and Alex’s sister Avery, all took private lessons this summer. And Zoee puts in a lot of time hitting the ball.”
Avery Hlavacek is a CMB freshman. She will battle Collins-Maxwell freshmen Brynne Pritchard and Abbie Ericcson as well as Colo-NESCO freshman Halley Buseman for the final varsity spots.
“We don’t have great numbers right now, but we have an opportunity to compete as a team,” Padget said. “We just want to improve meet to meet and understand that we are playing against the course and not against certain teams.”
The move to 3A will be challenging, but Padget does not know if it’s much different than 2A.
“There are under par golfers at every class,” he said. “There’s probably just more of them in 3A than we are used to.”
The team will once again call Twin Anchors Golf Course in Colo its home course. And that in itself should provide CMB with an advantage.
“There is no question that the course is a home advantage,” Padget said. “It’s about course management. Seven of the nine holes have water hazards and we will only use our driver on two holes.”
CMB opens the season April 6 against Roland-Story at Twin Anchors. Action starts at 4 p.m. The Raiders head to West Marshall on April 13.
CMB Boys Golf
In the first season of playing with Colo-NESCO, the CMB boys golf team will have 20 golfers for head coach Dana Accola.
Accola is a teacher at Colo-NESCO. This is his second season working with the Colo-NESCO boys and the first with CMB, who will give Accola seven extra golfers.
And according to Accola, four Raiders will be in his top six.
The top three, in no particular order, will be CMB sophomore Caleb Van Zante and seniors Garrett Husske and Jake Hennick. Sean Deakins also is expected to make the varsity roster along with Colo-NESCO’s Isaiah Texeira and Ayden Bappe.
“Playing in 3A will be tough, but I would like to see two our guys at the top of the leaderboard every meet and our team to be in the top half of the scoring,” Accola said.
Like Padget, Accola sees Twin Anchors Golf Course as a home-course advantage.
“We will probably struggle on long courses, but anytime we get teams to Twin Anchors we’ll have a chance to win,” he said. “It’s all about course management there.”
CMB will start the season on the road. It travels to Roland-Story on April 6 and then to West Marshall on April 9. The home opener isn’t until 4 p.m. on April 21 against Colfax-Mingo.