By TR HARLAN

The core group that returns for the Chesterton girls track team is as good as anybody’s, but can they fill in the holes is the question coach Steve Kearney has.

The Trojans open the outdoor portion of their schedule today as they host Highland beginning at 4:30 p.m. at CHS.

“The indoor portion of our season gave hope in some areas and questions in some others,” Kearney said. “We still aren’t certain how we are going to come together in a dual meet. I think we have over half of the bases covered and we’re trying to cover the other half.”

The Trojans strength comes in the sprints and the jumps.

“Our strength is in our returning sprinters and field event people,” Kearney said. “They were good before and I think they’ve improved since last year, so we expect big things from them.”

Senior Katie McColly returns after a third place finish in the long jump at the State Meet last year and was the anchor on the ninth place 4x100 Relay team.

Sophomore Megan Erminger finished seventh in the long jump and was also on the 4x100 team.

“Katie McColly and Megan Erminger have State experience for us from last year,” Kearney said. “We’ll expect them to score points for us in the sprints and the long jump. Chrissy Watts and Rachel Crawford have State-caliber ability in the high jump and we’ll need them too.”

The Trojans have more than 70 kids in the program this year, including a talented group of younger kids that should aid a solid group of seniors.

“We have about 70 kids in the program this year and we are going to count on all of them this year,” Kearney said. “We have a good group of seniors that we’ll count on during the year in a lot of different events. They’re spread out pretty well across the board. They would make a pretty decent team themselves because they are so diverse.

“There is a lot of talent in the other age groups we have that can fill in a lot of those holes that we have in the lineup.”

Chesterton should also be solid in the hurdles and middle distance.

“Brianne (Guardiola), Kelsey (Phillips) and Kirstyn (Nallenweg) are all running well in the hurdles for us,” Kearney said. “Katie Behrendt has been running well. Allyson Harvey is back for us in the 800. Mallory Przybylinski, Paige Kadish and Marissa Crafton are all back again too.”

An improving distance crew should help against solid groups of runners from the rest of the conference.

“We’ve shown improvement in the distance group,” Kearney said. “We ran much better indoors this year than we did last year.”

Lake Central and Crown Point appear to be the top end teams in the Duneland Athletic Conference this year, according to Kearney, with the Trojans, Valparaiso, Michigan City and Merrillville close behind.

“The conference looks really scary this year, so we can’t mess around too much,” Kearney said. “We’ll need to be able to score in every event. We have to find a way to go get points in the events we aren’t real strong in and we’ve got to score a bunch in the things that are our strength.

“We have some pretty good kids that are competitive. I think if we put them on the track they’ll go out and compete really well with everyone.”

Posted 4/3/2008