Elmwood/Plum City girls have shot at D-SC title

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ELMWOOD - With 10 returning letter winners, Elmwood/Plum City's girls track team has opportunity for a breakthrough season in 2012.

The Red Devils finished second in the D-SC meet and finished second in the regional meet by two points to Eau Claire Regis. Even though E/PC lost some of its top athletes in sprinter Jenna Reitz, distance runners Ashley Osteen and Niky Dierks and jumper Jordyn Mark to graduation, head coach Sue Thompson believes there's more than enough talent around to reach one place beyond.

"We're aiming for the conference title and and the regional title," Thompson said. "We hope to stay healthy and avoid any kind of surprises which would affect us negatively, because we have the athletes to win it."

Thompson said she was pleased to see the team do well against bigger schools in two indoors meets at UW-Stout, neither with their full team. E/PC's success was largely due to the their distance relay teams, the 800, 1600 and 3200, which won championships on the conference, regional and sectional level. These teams include returning letter winners like sophomores Elaina Danzinger, Tessa Olson and Sarah Gilles, juniors Marah Boyer, Heather Von Holtum, seniors Becky Hartung and Morgan Sweeney.

Also back for Elmwood/PC were senior throwers Kristi Buckner, Ashley Longsdorf and Renee Grab and senior runner Abbe Hartung.

"We'll be very good in the relays but winning championships will require us to place two persons in each event," Thompson said. "And we're going need our athletes to put in those kinds of champion efforts or the best they can in those events to get the most points we can."

The Elmwood/Plum City boys team took significant graduation losses as well, including state place winner and D-SC champion Alex Gilles along with Lance Von Holtum, Tyler Churchill, Gabe Rodriguez, Jesse McKune, Jordan Jones and Nick Zopp, from the two-time regional champions.

"We're a young team right now," Thompson said. "We have a lot of young athletes and hopefully we'll be competitive in time but that's where we're at right now."

E/PC's top trackmen include junior middle distance runner Seth Jones, along other returning lettermen senior hurdler Chase Lantz, senior Jon Wieser, senior Aaron Larson and junior Alex Usher.

Thompson notes two things this season which will help Elmwood/Plum City's program. One is Plum City moving the date of the senior class trip as not to conflict with the Dunn-St. Croix meet and having persons try the pole vault for the first time, despite not having the facilities for it.

Tags: track and field, plum city, sports, prep, elmwood