Menu
Tiger harriers getting ready
By Joe Warren
Nevada Daily Mail
The first meet of the season for the Nevada Tigers cross country team is Tuesday, and three spots have seemingly been secured on the varsity roster.
That leaves four more spots to go.
Juniors Jim Fay, Mason Benn and Curtis Davis, through hard work, ability and dedication, should be assured of varsity spots barring any unforeseen drop in production.
But head coach Robert Watts said the other four spots will likely not be decided until after Tuesday, giving him a meet to determine the rest of the varsity squad.
On Tuesday the Tigers go to Carthage to participate in a quadrangular meet.
That leaves seven harriers in the running for the final four varsity spots.
Senior Justin Hou, juniors Darren Chapman, Nick Conway and Stephen Newland, sophomore Mark Reed and freshmen Bill Fay and Trevor Hinkle are all trying to break the varsity squad.
"They push each other real hard," Watts said of those trying to get the nod. "It'll be interesting to see who gets the top seven."
Tuesday's meet, along with practice times and numbers of practices attended will all factor into deciding the varsity Watts said. Having to decide between athlete for the varsity is something Watts is not used to, since often he has only the numbers to make up the squad.
"This is kind of a new problem for me to have too many kids," Watts said. "It's a nice problem to have."
Watts said that the final team could be a surprise to those who might believe they are on the team because of experience.
"We might have kids who ran varsity the last couple years that may not make varsity (this year)," he said.
The increased competition in practice should help the Tigers prepare this season, as they attempt to knock off Carthage in the district.
"Carthage is the team to beat," Watts said. "If we can keep our top five kids together toward the front, we might not have anybody finish in the top 10, but we can win the meet."
The Tigers are also looking to host a meet this year, although nothing has been finalized.
They are also hoping to host the district meet once again. The past two years the district meet was held in Nevada.
The cross country program has experienced quite a bit of growth this season.
For the first time the Tigers have a middle school program up and running. There are currently five athletes on the middle school team.
The Tigers also have girls on the team. The girls compete in their own races against other girls, but work and train with the boys.
The past two seasons, there were no girls on the team.