WAYNE – As the high school track & field season has started, the Wayne High girls and boys teams are excited to be back in action.
No team scoring was kept during last Friday’s Wayne State College High School Invite, but all were glad to get the chance to compete.
Just like many spring sporting events across the nation had to adapt with the cancelation of the 2020 season, the Wayne High track & field team is anxious to compete in the 2021 season.
Dale Hochstein has been leading the Blue Devil track & field team since 1987 starting with the girls and then in the early 2000s took over the boys.
During the pandemic last year and when the NSAA called off all spring sports, coach Hochstein said they sent out daily workouts to the team.
“To try and continue to work on things on their own since we couldn’t bring them together in groups,” said Hochstein. “We tried to send, from time to time, different videos on techniques and try to remind them to help to visualize and look at the things that they could possibly do.”
Head coach Hochstein will lead the long and triple jumpers as well as sprinters while his five assistant coaches include Mike Jaixen (HJ); Terry Beair (PV); Jacob Daum (hurdles); Brenden Dorcey (throwers) and Christa Dutcher (distance) along with coaching aides of Mandy Stabler, Preston Davis and Kiara Hochstein.
Numbers are slightly down as coach Hochstein added they’ll have a mix of inexperience and experience.
“The girls team is going to be predominantly freshmen and sophomores who have never been out for a high school track program,” Hochstein added. “We have just over 30 girls out for track and then we have 23 guys currently thinking about participating. Again, we do have a fair number of senior guys.”
Home invitationals from Kern Track will be on Tuesday, April 6 at 1 p.m. as well as Tuesday, April 13 at 2 p.m.
“We’ve had great fan support at our meets,” Hochstein mentioned. “We’ve always prided ourselves in running one of the best meets in northeast Nebraska. It generally leads to some great competition and some good things to watch.”
The Wayne High track & field team will be off until Tuesday, March 30 before joining David City Aquinas Catholic, Bennington, Bishop Neumann, South Sioux City and the host Columbus Scotus from Pawnee Park/Memorial Field in Columbus starting at 2 p.m.