New track, new season offers plenty of reasons for optimism for Arrow boys and girls

Watertown head coach Chad Rohde feels there's at least 140 reasons for the Arrows to put the 2023 high school track and field season in the rearview mirror.

After a season that might just be best forgotten, the Arrows are set to kick off their 2024 seasons by competing in the Ruth Marske Indoor Invitational on Saturday in Brookings.

It'll technically be the first official meet for Watertown, which didn't even have a track to perform on last spring. Construction on a new football-track facility at Allen Mitchell Field made for an usual season for the Arrow athletes, which also included some typical South Dakota weather taking its toll in April.

This spring, Rohde and his assistants (Casey Feininger, Carter Buelow, Will Castle, John Hodorff, JJ Clendenin, Olivia Taschner and Jenn McElroy and volunteers Vic Godfrey, Brian Antoine and Nathan Ingalls) are working with a group of around 140 athletes, 80 boys and 60 girls.

"Our numbers weren't the greatest last year and there's a few reasons for that. We had a new sport in softball. We lost some athletes to that and baseball is growing," Rohde said.

"We just didn't have the numbers like we normally do. And we didn't even get to practice on a track except for one day prior to the state meet last year. We didn't have pits to jump and in and we were trying to do relays on sidewalks. It was just tough."

Ready to put the past behind

Even with a weekend snowstorm in the forecast, some higher-than-normal temperatures in February and March has things looking like this year's spring seasons may not be affected as much by a late winter as they are typically for northeastern South Dakota athletes.

All the issues last spring just made for a tough season, one that ended with Watertown's teams placing 15th (boys) and 16th (girls) in the state Class AA track and field championships. Both finishes are among the lowest that either program has experienced.

Watertown's boys hadn't finished out of the top 10 since taking 13th in 2000. The boys have finished 10th or lower only three times since 1993. The girls were 13th in 2014 and last year's finish marked only the fifth time since 1993 that Watertown's girls hadn't finished in the top 10.

Enough of that. Let's focus on 2024 and the future.

"We have about 140 kids out this spring which is the most we've had in the past 8-10 years," Rohde said. "That is good. It's a really good thing when you have to call your administration to ask if you'll be able to take three busses instead of two."

Not only have the Arrows got more time outside than they typically do by this time of the year, they have a facility again that features a new track.

"It's kind of like Field of Dreams where "If you build it, they will come,'" Rohde said. "This is an exciting time for Watertown track and field to have this facility to run on. When this is all said and done, we could have the best facility in the state."

2023 State Track Wrap: Hamlin's Leiseth, Roncalli's Munroe and Sioux Valley's Bloker each win two individual events

It's all going to come down to performance

Without a track last spring, Rohde admits that the Arrow athletes weren't able to get the training they needed and that certainly affected their performance in the Eastern South Dakota Conference meet (the girls took seventh and the boys eighth out of nine teams in their respective divisions) and the state meet.

Watertown's boys and girls each return only three state individual-event place winners and all are from field events.

Senior pole vaulter and University of South Dakota recruit Owen Spartz repeated as the Class AA boys' champion last spring and will be favored to win a third-straight title. Fellow seniors Juven Hudson (fourth in long jump) and University of North Dakota recruit Boaz Raderschadt (seventh in discus) also are back. The girls welcome back sophomore Malia Kranz (sixth in shot put), senior Paige McAreavey (seventh in discus) and sophomore Makenna Blank (eighth in long jump).

Hudson and junior Jeremiah Schulte and Shey Coltrin were three of the four members of the Arrow boys' eighth-place medley relay team, the only Watertown relay squad (boys or girls) that placed in the state meet.

Now an early start to the season due to better weather and a facility (new or not) should both prove beneficial for the Watertown track squads this spring, but moving up the ladder isn't guaranteed.

"Sure we have 140 kids out, but Sioux Falls Lincoln posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that it had 276 kids out for track. "That means we have less than 50 percent of what they have. We will be able to fill some holes as the season goes along. I do want to say that with the practices we've had and with what I've seen from kids, we have a lot of them looking to have a lot of fun."

Opening Day of 2023 State Meet: Watertown places in five AA events and Aberdeen Central three in opening day of state meet

The schedule and what to expect

A handful of Arrow shot putters and pole vaulters competed Monday in the Class A portion of the Dan Lennon Invitational in the DakotaDome at Vermillion. Kranz won the girls' shot put (42 feet, 0.75 inches) and Spartz the boys' vault (14-6) and Raderschadt took second in the boys' shot put (56-0.5).

Watertown also will compete Tuesday in an indoor meet at Aberdeen before they're hoping to compete outdoors for the first time on Friday, April 5 at Huron. Preparations are underway for the 60th Watoma Relays, the only home meet of the season for the Arrows, on Friday, April. 19

The Arrows also have scheduled outdoor meets in Sioux Falls (April 16), Aberdeen (April 27), Brandon (April 30) and Huron (May 16) along with the Howard Wood Dakota Relays May 3-4 in Sioux Falls and the ESD meet on May 11 at Brookings. The three-day state meet runs May 23-25 at Howard Wood in Sioux Falls.

Brandon Valley has won nine-straight girls and two-straight boys division titles in the ESD and should be the team to beat along with Harrisburg and others. Those top ESD teams will join some of the Sioux Falls and possibly Rapid City teams as the squads to beat in AA. O'Gorman's boys and Lincoln's girls are the defending state Class AA champions.

"I always says at the start of the season that we want to finish in the top half of both the conference and state," Rohde said. "Our goal is to get b ack into that category like we have in the past."

Follow Watertown Public Opinion sports reporter Roger Merriam on X (formerly known as Twitter) @PO_Sports or email: rmerriam@thepublicopinion.com

This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: 2024 season preview for Watertown High School track and field teams