SF Lincoln ready to get back on track
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (BVM) — After over a year of COVID-19, one of the first sports to be affected by the pandemic are finally having their chance to come back. The spring sports are about to begin and at SF Lincoln their track program can’t wait to get back.
“There seems to be a new sense of excitement, a new sense of just wanting to be there,” Patriots head coach Jim Jarovski said.
Both the boys and girls teams haven’t competed in an outdoor meet since they won state in the spring of 2019. Now almost two years later they have been working to get back to the level that has brought Lincoln track so much success in the past.
“We’ve made the best of the situation,” Jarovski said.
Unable to start their normal offseason training until February, the Patriots and their coaches have been coming in small groups each day to train. It has allowed more one-on-one time between coaches and runners, which normally doesn’t happen on a team of 75.
Even with training and the cross country team’s success in their season, the track program as a whole has entered the season not sure what to expect from its first official season since 2019. However, the team did get a little sample in their only indoor meet earlier this year.
“Just to be able to get back out there just competing against other kids and competing against other schools,” Jarovski said. “That’s something that I feel like all of us kind of missed out on so much last year. I mean we were all able to do some things in terms of workouts individually but just that competition and being able to go against somebody else.”
The competitions obviously worked as freshmen sprinter Ellen Merkley and senior Andrew Martens broke school records in the 60-meter dash and 60-meter hurdles respectively.
“We’ve set a lot of school records over the last 15 years but I can’t remember a situation where we set two school records in the first meet,” Jarovski said. “To do that coming out of the gate it kind of just built a little bit of excitement for us and built some excitement for the program.”
For the Patriots, it acted as a reminder of what it means to “put on the baby blues” and compete on the Lincoln track team.
“That was one of my worries coming out of missing a year of track is forgetting that culture a little bit and forgetting what it means to be a part of the program,” Jarovski said.
This year’s senior class has also played a vital role in making sure everyone remembers what being a Patriot is all about. This is a group that was on the last state championship team as sophomores and now that they’re seniors it is their time to take the reins.
At the indoor meet, their readiness to take on leadership roles was on display and the Lincoln coaching staff is approaching the season knowing that the program is ready.
That leadership will be needed in a year where there is a lot of uncertainty and the indoor meet showcased that as well.
It has been two years since anyone, beside long distance runners who competed in cross country, has seen anyone else compete in a sanctioned event. The last time Merkley raced she was in seventh grade and now Jarovski says she is one of the best 60m sprinters in the state.
“There are so many athletes that are going to pop up,” Jarovski said.
For the coaching staff and the runners it means that they can not enter the season expecting to be the best or strongest in any event based on what happened two years ago. It will be at least halfway through the season before any assumptions or projections can be made accurately based on current data.
However, that also works in the Patriots’ favor as they too have runners that are ready to grab everyone’s attention, runners like Chase Johnson and Elizabeth Jerstad are two that Jarovski is excited to see out on the track.
With Lincoln’s first meet of the season on April 6 at the Harrisburg Quad, the Patriots will get their chance soon and one of the first of the sports to be affected by the pandemic will finally get their chance to compete again.
