Maryville track and field begins season at Bearcat Indoor, prepares for Lathrop Invitational

After weeks of preparation, the track and field season has begun for Maryville High School. The season is young, with two meets already in the record books and 10 more competitions to come.

To kickoff the season with Bearcat Indoor March 18, the Spoofhounds had multiple top-five finishers in multiple events, including two second-place finishes by senior Keaton Stone in the long jump and the triple jump. Stone said it was nice to get the first meet under his belt.

“It is the start of the season — just finished with basketball season — but I'm still trying to get in the groove with track,” Stone said. “I can’t complain too much because those numbers will go up as the season progresses.”

At the meet, the boys track team took fourth place out of 17 teams with 44 athletes on Maryville’s boys roster. On the girls’ side, the Spoofhounds claimed the No. 15 spot out of 20 teams with 29 athletes on the girls team. Savannah girls were the only other Midland Empire Conference squad to compete, and the Savages finished 16th.

On this year's track and field team, coach Rodney Bade has 14 freshmen across the boys and girls teams. Even with the youth, he said he looks to get more conference championships and state qualifiers this year with the team he has at his fingertips. He said even with low placement on the girls side at the Bearcat Indoor, he expects good things to come.

“We pride ourselves on individual qualifiers and relay qualifiers,” Bade said. “We have a great hurler. We have a few girls who are returning from a (4x100-meter relay) that went to state last year, and we have a discus thrower that qualified for state. I would say that our strengths are hurdles, short sprints, and throws.”

Being a senior this year, Stone has already committed to Central Missouri to continue his track and field career, but he said he still has goals that he wants to achieve.

“I feel like the big goal is to win the state title,” Stone said. “I feel like the goal in every high school season is to get to the state track meet again and hopefully stand atop of the podium.”

For Bade, who took over the helm at Maryville in summer 2019, there is always room to improve in every event. Bade said there’s no time to take a break in a busy season, and without much depth on the boys and girls teams, there’s more focus on working hard to score more points.

“Our running events are really strong, and our throwing events are on the rise,” Bade said. “We have a couple seniors who score a lot of points for us, and we might have one kid who scores a lot of points in one event, and then we can’t score as many after that.”

The Maryville Time Trial March 22 is the last of two consecutive home meets for the Spoofhounds. Their next meet is the Lathrop Invitational March 28. There won’t be a competition in Maryville again until the Spoofhound Invitational April 27.