Waukon girls track team returns large group of 18 varsity veterans, welcomes promising freshman class for its 2018 spring campaign


2018 Waukon girls track team ... Left to right - Front row: Lia Maffini, Lauren Elliott, Alexz Grampovnik. Second row: Bailey Shafer, Kailey Smith, Zaida Bockman, Megan O’Neill, Brooke Wasson, Brigid Berns, Cassidy Byrnes, Lauren Behrend, Leah Bulman, Maddie Ahlstrom, Lauren Griffith. Third row: Maddy Waters, Skylar Garrett, Maya Bossom, Olivia Byrnes, Ella Hermeier, Nevaeh Bushaw, Alison Sherman, Hailey Regan, Regan Griffith, Katelyn Benzing. Fourth row: Madelyn Marti, Sierra Mulholland, Lilly Kossman, Ellec Armstead, Katie Gress, Maddie Mellick, Annika Headington, Delaney Nagel, Alyssa Nesseim. Back row: Haylee Thesing, Shelby Wyninger. Not pictured: Laurel Keenan, Sydney Ross.

2018 Waukon girls track returning letterwinners ... Left to right - Front row: Madelyn Marti, Lauren Griffith, Brooke Wasson, Lauren Elliott, Alexz Grampovnik, Alyssa Nesseim, Hailey Regan, Alison Sherman. Back row: Ellec Armstead, Zaida Bockman, Megan O’Neill, Brigid Berns, Cassidy Byrnes, Lauren Behrend, Leah Bulman, Katelyn Benzing. Not pictured: Laurel Keenan, Sydney Ross.

A large returning class of 18 varsity veterans will help lead the way for the 2018 Waukon girls track season now getting underway. That returning list of experience for this season’s track Tribe will feature just three seniors and near equal totals of eight juniors and seven sophomores to headline an overall crew of 37 track and field athletes.

Those varsity veterans include just a pair of competitors with the ultimate experience of State Meet qualification, as senior Lauren Elliott and sophomore Alyssa Nesseim return from their first-time competitions at the season grand finale as members of the Indians’ distance medley relay crew that qualified to compete among the Class 2A elite last spring. Seniors Alexz Grampovnik and Laurel Keenan join Elliott as the senior trio leading that returning veteran crew, with this season’s only other senior competitor being foreign exchange student Lia Maffini.

The Indians were slated to get their first taste of competition for this season with the annual Northeast Iowa Conference Indoor Meet, which was scheduled to be hosted by Wartburg College in Waverly Tuesday, March 20. The Indians are then scheduled to open up their outdoor competition schedule at the Frostbite Invitational hosted by Sumner-Fredericksburg Tuesday, March 27.

For more complete coverage, pick up this week's print edition or subscribe to our e-edition by clicking here.