A couple weeks into Hillcrest High track and field preseason, head coach Scott Stucki posted on Instagram: “Not what I would have expected for practice in March” along with a photograph of his student-athletes shoveling mounds of snow off the track.

It was a different kind of workout than he had originally planned. Fortunately, some of his athletes had competed in indoor track during the offseason.

“We had about 20 sprinters, distance runners and throwers during indoor and they made some improvements,” he said. “If you can get to where you were at the end of the previous outdoor season, it’s a pretty good indicator you’ll have a good outdoor season.”

During the winter months, Stucki was pleased with many of his distance runners’ times. Senior Sam Martin, senior Andy Romanovsky and sophomore Kimmy Mavaddat all improved their outdoor track times while junior Edith Neslen and senior Jacob Baird ran about the same times as the end of last spring, he said.

Stucki has already been working with his athletes readying them for the season. He is planning to run the same squad on the 4x400 boys relay team this year, hoping they will be able to medal at state. He also expects his pole vaulters for both girls and boys to medal again at state. Stucki said it’s likely the girls 4x800 team sets a new school record. 

As of press deadline, all he was waiting for is less snow on his track.

If the weather improves, Hillcrest was to open their season March 18 with the Salt Lake Classic, with sprint, hurdle and jump events at Corner Canyon High and distance and throwing events at Riverton High. 

“We have 11 coaches now between our paid staff and volunteers, so we’ll be able to split up our coaching squad to be there for the kids,” he said.

Hillcrest will host its first region meet on March 22, which as of press deadline, had a forecast of snow.

Other invitational meets during the season will be held at Copper Hills, Juab, Taylorsville, Logan, Bingham and Davis high schools. 

The Huskies will host JV region on May 2 and varsity region will be at Cedar Valley May 10-11. State is May 18 and May 20 at Brigham Young University in Provo.

“We’re still kind of young on the girls’ side. I think we’re pretty good with our distance girls. The bulk of our boy sprinters are juniors and on the distance side, we are pretty solid. We’ll need that difference maker so hopefully we can find that. Maybe some kids have matured into that, but we'll just have to see. We’ve got kids willing to work and we got enough people to work with them,” Stucki said. “We’ve got some new faces out this year, so that’s going to help, and we can see what they can do.”