Plymouth cross country running into a new season
PLYMOUTH — The summer is over and it’s time for the mileage Plymouth’s cross-country runners have put in to pay off.
The girl’s team returns Sophie Wray who has already shown that she can be one of the area’s best.\
“We are really excited about what she is capable of doing,” said Plymouth coach Curtis Nordmann. “Last year she was able to get the school record in the 5K at 19:15. If she can be back at that level again, if not a little bit better, we are really excited for her.”
“We have three seniors Cassie Riddle and Addie Kingston, all three are great leaders,” said Nordmann. “We have a handful of juniors, Riley Laird is probably our hardest worker on the team. We have some sophomores that can be varsity point scorers for us, and I’ve got three freshman girls that show a lot of promise. I’m really excited about them.”
The boys have less experience returning but plenty of talent.
“We have one senior, Coby Walters and he has potential, said Nordmann. “If he wants to be good he can be good. I’m excited for him because he’s coming off a really good track season, where he bought into it and worked really hard. Showed up every day as one of the faster guys.”
“Joe Stauffer has some talent,” he said. “He works really hard as does Ethan Podlesak who’s put in a really good summer so I’m hoping that summer of hard miles and hard work can pay off for him.”
“The biggest thing is keeping everybody healthy and making sure that they stay healthy.”
Especially a priority in a sport like cross country where your numbers can make or break a team win.
“Just having a good one runner doesn’t do it quite for you,” said Nordmann. “You need those three and fours that are right in there if you really want to win some stuff.”
Every cross country season starts early as a tradition that has carried on from legendary Plymouth coach Allen Shockney continues.
“Went to Clifty Falls (State Park in Madison, IN) with a lot of team hikes, running, and games,” said Nordmann. ” It was a good time. You talk to any alumni they all will talk to you about Coach (Allen) Shockney taking them to Brown County and how much fun they had there.”
“If you really want to set yourself up for a good season you really have to put the mileage in the summer,” he said. “Not that you can’t have a good season without it but the other teams are doing it. If you aren’t you are going to be behind the curve. There is a saying “Summer miles bring fall smiles”
Nordmann hopes the team bonding and summer work will pay dividends.
“I don’t want to say our goal is to win the NLC but we really want to finish in the top half,” he said. “On the girl’s side if they could be top three that would be a big win for us. I’m in my tenth year of coaching and on the girl’s side we’ve never finished in the top half. This season we have the potential to do that. This could be one of the best girls’ teams that I’ve coached, but it’s the NLC. You could have two teams that were okay last year and this year a couple of runners developed and now they are great.”
“Same for the boys. I’d like to finish top half. There are some teams out there that are state-caliber teams and we aren’t quite to that level yet.”
A change in the tournament format for cross country also puts a big question mark on the season.
“We got rid of semi-state so it’s sectional, regional, state,” said Nordmann. “We now go to the New Haven regional. We will be running against teams we’ve never run against before. We are going to the New Haven Invitational in the middle of the year just so we can see those teams but I really don’t know what to expect.”
