Newcomers with solid returners give Plymouth a positive outlook

Courtesy of The Pilot News

PLYMOUTH — Already on the track for the indoor season Plymouth boys track and field head coach Curtis Nordmann is seeing some things he likes in the season warm-ups.
“It’s just to get some pre-season stuff. We aren’t looking to break any records or anything,” he said. “We’ve been practicing for about a month so it’s good to get the kids out and say hey, let’s get a mark. It’s fun to compete and that’s the biggest thing.”
“It will be nice to possibly see our sophomore Ethan Podlesak break 11 minutes in the two-mile, senior Ben Lloyd hopefully can jump 5’8″, 5’10ish, early in the season that would be awesome,” said Nordmann. “Hopefully our 4×200 can be under 1:40, just give them a couple of marks early in the season.
The unseasonal weather has been a welcome thing for both Plymouth’s boys’ and girls’ teams.
“We are not usually outside this much by now it’s been great,” said Nordmann. “There are some schools that have indoor facilities and they can do so much more than we can. On a rainy day, baseball is indoors, softball is indoors, tennis is indoors, track is indoors, and golf is indoors.”
“There is limited space, it’s hardwood floors so we aren’t going to do a lot of running. When we have a meet (the next day) it would be nice to go through our handoffs for the 4×200. If you are indoors you can’t really do it and do it well.”
“We already have our high jump mats and our pole vault mats outside already,” said Nordmann. “Some years we still have snow right now. Two years ago it was a horrible spring and our pole vaulters didn’t really get in a lot of work until May. April was so rainy and by the time they got a chance to really work and learn some things the season was over.”
Nordmann has some very solid returning pieces.
“Our big returners are Ben Lloyd, Coby Walters, and Ryle Lunsford, he’s a vaulter and Quentin Baird is a sprinter,” said Nordmann of his senior class. “Ben is probably our fastest kid and our number one high jumper. Hopefully, he’ll be able to jump 6′ maybe push 6’2″, that’s the goal. Coby ran some great 400s for us. Last year I think he ran a :53 and it will be great to see him go under that this year. If you can do that you are going to be scoring varsity points all day.”
Injury is already having an effect on the junior class.
“Unfortunately two of my best hurdlers are injured,” said Nordmann. “Cole Figg partially tore a hip flexor in soccer and Blake Mackey had a full-blown MCL/ACL tear in football so they are both out.”
But there is good news for the juniors.
“I’ve got a ton of juniors out this year,” said Nordmann. “I’m very excited. A lot of football guys that have not run track before are coming out for track and I’m really excited about those guys. It just makes sense. If you are a football guy and you don’t play baseball, you need to do track. I have 20 juniors out. That’s a lot of juniors.”
“I’ve got some sophomore sprinters, Finn Holm, Brady Coffin, Aiden Faulstich who have some really good talent,” said Nordmann. “Finn jumped 18’2″ last week in the long jump and we haven’t really even practiced. We don’t have any indoor sand to jump in and we haven’t been able to jump in any sand and he jumps an 18’2″. Aiden Faulstich is going to run some great 400s for us this year.”
In the distance, Nordmann has some depth that will help.
“We’re hoping with all of them we can break some five-minute miles hopefully running under 4:50 and then break an 11 minute in a two-mile and get into the 10s,” he said.
“This team has a lot of potential,” said Nordmann. “They really do. We have a couple of injuries and a couple that didn’t come out this year that would have been big point scorers for us but I’m really excited about a lot of these new faces and how some of these kids can do.”
“I’ve got three goals. One is sectional champions. It’s very winnable for us. Two is that as an individual you get better over the course of the season. Three is Plymouth being represented at the (individual) state meet. We have some athletes that could be there.”

Schedule
March 28 — Rochester High School 5 p.m. Rockpile – Football/Track & Field
April 5 — Triton And LaVille 5 p.m. Plymouth High School Rockpile – Football/Track & Field
April 11 — Northwood/Northridge 5:30 p.m. Rockpile – Football/Track & Field
April 18 — Concord/Mishawaka 5:30 p.m. Rockpile – Football/Track & Field
April 24 — Goshen High School 5:30 p.m. at Goshen High School
May 1 — Warsaw/Wawasee 5:30 p.m. Warsaw High School
May 7 — NLC Meet 5 p.m. at Warsaw High School
May 11 — NLC-Meet-JV 10 a.m. Plymouth High School
May 16 — Sectional (H) 5:30 p.m. Rockpile – Football/Track & Field