A confident, excited group of Polk County indoor track athletes boarded a bus Thursday afternoon bound for Winston-Salem, hopes and spirits high as they received an official escort with sirens blaring through Columbus.
They may well return late Friday night worthy of an equally festive celebration.
With two relay teams ranked as the state’s best, a handful of other high seeds in various events and adaptive sprinter Hanna O’Brien set to make state history, Friday’s 1A/2A state championship meet at JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem promises to be a most interesting afternoon for the 17 qualifiers that comprise Polk County’s squad. The 1A/2A meet begins at 4 p.m. with both track and field events.
Woman-owned, family-run, and just up the road. Skytop Cabinets - custom cabinetry, Polk County.
Complete list of Polk qualifiers | Complete list of seed times | Blazing a new trail: O’Brien set to make history
First on Friday’s schedule is the boys’ and girls’ 4×800-meter relays, and it is in those events that Polk County may well have a shot to earn its first state championship since John Spencer Wolfe won the 1600-meter run in 2009. The Wolverine boys enter the race with a seed time of 8:18.33, 22 seconds faster than the best time by second seed Franklin. The state 1A/2A indoor record in the event is 8:22.74, well within the team’s reach.
The Polk girls – Emily Kocher, Allison Swope, Savannah Robbins, Emma Wagoner and Addie Lynch – own a seed time about a second faster than Community School of Davidson and could break an even longer title drought as no female competitor has won a state indoor title since 1998, when Jennifer Dimsdale won the 1000-meter run. No Polk relay team, boys or girls, has even won a state indoor championship.
“I think we’ve got a chance to get at least one state champion,” said Polk County head coach Alan Peoples. “There are two keys for the girls race. One will be what our girls do and how well they run. Two, which relay will the Community School of Davidson’s fastest runner (Malia Ellington) run. She’s in three events and two relays and you can only run four, so depending on which race she chooses could mean a difference for our girls.”
The boys team of Sean Doyle, Jacob Wolfe, Mitchell Brown, Caleb Brown and Eli Hall (four will run Friday) has consistently improved with every meet this season, emerging as a legitimate state championship contender. Peoples credits the veteran nature of the team as well as assistant coach Jenny Wolfe for the group’s success.
“Experience and good training by Jenny,” Peoples said. “It’s running in the summer and then cross country, plus they all ran last year. Some have been running as much as three years.
“All that piles on as you get older and get stronger. You build a base and you can take the tougher training that Jenny gives them.”
Doyle and Wolfe are seeded second and third, respectively, in the 1000-meter run, with Doyle also the third seed in the 1600. The junior qualified in five individual events and two relays, leaving him with some decisions to make for Friday’s meet.
Polk’s boys 4×400-meter relay team – Doyle, Wolfe, Hall, Caleb Brown and Tanner Garrett – enters as the second seed in that race, with the girls team – Kocher, Swope, Robbins, Lynch and Ashton Capozzi – the third seed. Kocher is seeded fourth in the 1000, with Robbins seeded sixth in the 500.
O’Brien will make history on Friday as the first female adaptive athlete to compete in the state indoor meet. She will run her race solo against the clock, looking to beat a pre-determined standard in order to become a state champion.
Peoples has high expectations for both teams.
“The boys could be second, and the girls could be as high as fifth,” Peoples said.
“This has been fun. It’s a great group of kids to be around. We’ve transferred this from cross country to indoor, and now the goal will be to transfer to outdoor.”
Polk County Indoor State Champions
1991: Karen Godlock, 1000-meter run
1992: Karen Godlock, 1-mile run; 2-mile run
1993: Karen Godlock, 1-mile run; 2-mile run
1997: Jennifer Dimsdale, 1000-meter run; 1600-meter run
1998: Jennifer Dimsdale, 1000-meter run
2009: John Spencer Wolfe, 1600-meter run
