Garden Plain Track team celebrated at Freddy’s after the state track meet.

This past season at GPHS the track athletes worked hard to make their way to state. The team spent a lot of time working to get better and faster no matter the weather or difficulty of the workout. It all paid off when together boys and girls had 24 athletes qualify for state. These athletes worked hard and were dedicated, but they couldn’t have done it without their coaches.

Mark Powell, head boys coach and also coach for the hurdlers and runners, timed all of the runners during workouts and kept them on pace. Kelsey Talbott, head coach for the girls and the throwers, is a very successful thrower herself. She threw the shot put for Division I University of Oklahoma. Her skills and knowledge definitely shined through in her coaching this season with 5 throwers qualifying and 4 of them placing at state.

Both of these coaches spent time planning practices and making workouts for their athletes and are certainly appreciated. Powell and Talbott were not the only coaches to push the Owl track team to success. Paige Stuhlsatz-Arnold coached pole vault, and rightfully so, as she has years of experience vaulting in high school and in college at WSU. She is a two time state champion vaulter. Stuhlsatz-Arnold trained her athletes well and it shows because one of her vaulters, Jewel Gallagher, won the 2A state championship in pole vault. 

Have you ever wondered what it must feel like to be a state champion? You would guess that the feeling of it would be awesome and you would feel on top of the world. If you guessed that then you would be right. 

Gallagher said, “There is no other feeling…It’s unreal hearing all of the cheering and yells, and hearing your name over that big of a speaker.” Her other opponent that was still in the competition had her last attempt, and failed, and was out of the competition. Jewel failed the vault of 10 feet and was upset, but was unaware she had won. Looking to her coach for corrections after her vault, she was told she had captured the championship. Gallagher said, “…I was just like oh my gosh, like this is it, I did it.” Now Gallagher is looking toward this next season and already working on technique and all of the core strength and endurance she will need.

As the Owls prepare for this next season, coach Mark Powell is excited and ready to see how far they go, Powell said, “We took a lot of girls (to state) in a lot of events, and I think this freshman class will be pretty strong, I think the girls should have aspirations of being up on the podium at the end of the season. And same thing for the boys…I think the boys should be hoping to crack the top five this year.”

Other coaches helping the Owls were Chris Pauley, who coached javelin and helped with relays, and Megan Mann who coached the long and triple jumpers, as well as the high jumpers. While Powell and Pauley worked together on practicing handoffs and timing the relay runners, Pauley also coached the javelin throwers and practiced with them late into the evening. Mann helped the jumpers measure their steps, perfect their runs down the runway, and corrected them on their jumps.

The Garden Plain track team is going to be a real threat to watch out for this next season with many returning state participants, and a new class of promising athletes. Although they are losing some strong seniors, they will definitely be making up for it in different areas.