Petersen optimistic about 1st season
PHIL COBB/DAILY FORUM
The 2015 Nodaway-Holt track and field team roster includes: front row, from left — Nicole Albertson, Frankie Lemar, Jordan Long, Macie Bohanan, Toni Carroll, Colbie Carden and Maddie Lance; second — James Chesnut, Brody Day, Cody Schniedermeyer, Nali Tattersall, Zachery Walker and Cole Alloway.
Editor’s note: The Daily Forum will be previewing every high school and college team in Nodaway County as the spring sports season approaches. This is an installment in a series that will be published over the course of the next several weeks.
Josh Petersen doesn’t know how his first season at the helm of the Nodaway-Holt track team will go, but he’s looking forward to it.
“It is my first year coaching varsity track so it will be a challenge,” Petersen said. “…Overall, I don’t know how the season will go but I’m looking forward to it.”
The Trojans will be without 10-time All-State performer Megan Rosenbohm — Nodaway-Holt’s lone representative at state last season when she brought home three medals — and Jamie James, the former head coach, who is now an assistant at Maryville.
However, Petersen is optimistic about the pieces he has coming back and looks for his team and its 15 athletes to be competitive.
“I look for us to be competitive in meets and hope we can place in the top 5-7,” he said. “Individually, I feel we have some kids that could compete this year.”
On the boys’ side, Petersen said he expects sophomore Brody Day to excel in the 200- and 400-meter dashes. Day finished fifth at the Class 1, District 8 meet a season ago in the 400, just missing out on qualifying for sectionals.
Petersen also has high expectations for senior thrower Cody Schniedermeyer and sophomore hurdler Zach Walker as well as the boys’ 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400-meter relays. Last year, the 4×100 team finished fifth at districts and the 4×400 placed eighth.
Schniedermeyer finished fourth at districts and sixth at sectionals in the shot put last season while Walker finished fifth in the 300-meter hurdles at sectionals, just missing the state cut.
On the girls’ side, sophomore Maddie Lance (high jump), sophomore Macie Bohannon (triple jump) and junior Jordan Long (throws) are athletes Petersen expects to score points for the team.
Bohannon finished fifth at the Class 1, Sectional 4 meet a year ago in the triple jump, finishing one spot shy of advancing to state. She took fifth in the 400-meter dash at districts, as well.
Long finished sixth in the shot put at sectionals as a sophomore and Lance placed eighth in the high jump as a freshman at districts — experience that should help them heading into the 2015 season.
“I think our relays could be competitive as well,” Petersen said.
Petersen and the Trojans open the spring season at 4 p.m. Monday, March 30 at the North Platte Invitational.
