By RYAN WALKER
After a successful 2022 track season, the Norwell boys’ team is ready to kick it up a notch this year.
The team returns a bunch of key contributors to last year’s third-place finish in the Northeast 8 Conference and second in the sectional. The group is experienced and well-rounded.
“We are excited for this year,” head coach Adam Prater said, now entering his seventh season with the Knights. “We have the right pieces to win championships. As long as the guys put in the work and take care of themselves, we can do that.”
A pair of state qualifiers highlight the returning cast this season. Newly signed Taylor University Trojan Jake Parker will try to make another appearance at the state meet. In the 110 hurdles, Parker placed 20th in the finals and has a goal to place higher in his senior season while also making it in the 300 hurdles.
“I’m hoping I’ll be able to place in both 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles down at states,” Parker noted the day of his college signing in mid-March. “That’s definitely a big goal for me, and I think I can do it with some good push in myself like that, work hard, and I think it’ll happen, hopefully.”
The other state qualifier was Winston Frauigher, who ended up 21st in the high jump, and Prater says he’s already two inches higher than last year.
Others that will lead Norwell on the points sheet are Trevon Stoppenhagen in sprinting events, Kyle Zeddis in throwing, Jasper Kreigh in the pole vault, and Zach Waldman in long distance.
The goal this season is to simply bring home more hardware. The lone trophy that the Knights brought on the bus ride back was the Heritage Invitational, but the team fell just a spot or two of the conference and sectional crown along with the South Adams Invitational.
If a few more athletes did other events or had more gaps to fill, Prater says that the team might have been able to win a few of those meets. He stated that the Knights had added a few more to patch that problem, and with two indoor meets this season, the squad is proving worthy of a title run.
“The goal is to win the conference and the sectional,” he said. “We missed the sectional title by 8 points last season. We’ve added a couple of guys who are going to make a difference in our lineup. The indoor season allowed us to see that guys are running times that they were hitting when the season ended last year. Some are faster. It will be exciting this season.”
Norwell’s first two meets of the season were completed in the beginning weeks of March in the indoor track at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Some of the best schools in the area competed against one another and included other big schools outside of the Fort Wayne area.
In terms of school records, Prater says he’s more focused on the year at hand and keeping track of the area’s times and comparing it to his team’s, but Stoppenhagen has a good shot in the 100 and 200-yard dash.
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