While the Powell High School boys track team will be playing keep away this season, the Lady Panther tracksters will be playing keep up.

One season after claiming the Class 3A State Track and Field championship, head coach Scott Smith’s Panther boys will be in defensive mode this season. Meanwhile, Smith believes the Lady Panthers will once again find its toughest competition in Cody High School, as the Fillies outlasted the PHS girls by just 6.5 points to claim the girls’ team title a season ago.

Heading into his 23rd season at the helm for PHS, Smith is patching together both of his squads after several seniors graduated last May. He’s confident, although in a quiet way, in the athletes he has coming out this spring.

“It’s hard to say early in the year, but we’ve got some pretty good kids coming back — both boys and girls,” Smith said. “Track’s kind of a funny thing: One year you can score 100 points and take first, and the next year you can score 100 points and take third.

“We’re just going to have to wait and see.”

The Panther Boys

Atop the list of Panther performers from last year is senior sprinter, hurdler and jumper Kalei Smith. A year ago, the three-sport athlete placed second in the 110 hurdles and the long jump, but claimed the crown in the high jump with a leap of 6 feet, 4 inches.

“Very talented young man, and really, athletically, he’s gotten so much stronger,” coach Smith said of Kalei Smith. They are not related.

Smith will surely provide consistency for the Panther boys, but PHS will have to wait on that impact, as he is currently dealing with a knee injury and was unable to compete in the team’s first meet at Cody on Saturday.

Senior Riley Stringer also took home a silver medal after finishing second in the shot put with a toss of 53-9.5. Stringer’s then-teammate Garrett Lynch (now graduated) took first with a 3A-record throw of 59-5.

“Last year he took second in the shot put with a throw that would win any other year,” Smith said of Stringer. “This year should be a good one for him.”

Stringer and fellow senior Carter Baxter (a state qualifier in both shot put and discus) should be Smith’s top throwers again this season, and showed why at the Cody Varsity Invitational on Saturday where Baxter pre-qualified for the 3A state meet in both events, while Stringer earned his place in the shot put.

Relays will be a bigger question mark for the Panthers, who bring as just three runners — Smith and juniors Zac Schuler and Cody Akin — return from the team’s three relay squads last season. The best of that trio — the 4x800 team that took second — returns just Akin, while the 4x400 team that placed third was comprised of all seniors.

Coach Smith knows he has several spots to fill, but isn’t expecting to find a quick fix. He said the team may not be at full strength until May.

“The other thing that’s different about track in the spring, we have a lot of kids doing different things, we never truly see our entire varsity team until we get into May,” he said. “That’s kind of the way it is for everybody.”

In the meantime, the veteran coach is hopeful some of the younger athletes can make an impact in the meantime.

“Just from our first week of practice, we’ve got a lot of kids — eighth-graders coming in or first time on the track — they’re really looking good,” Smith said. “They’re picking things up really a lot quicker than I’ve seen in the past. We just have some boys that are so promising.”

The Lady Panthers

Possibly PHS’ biggest remaining strengths from last season come in the form of senior Sarah Jean O’Neill and junior Danna Hanks. The two Lady Panthers helped the PHS 4x100 team to a state title a season ago, while O’Neill and then-juniors Stephanie Liggett and Bailey Sanders and current sophomore Teo Faulkner took fourth in the 4x800.

All six girls could help the Lady Panthers maintain a presence in relay competition.

“They do a nice job,” Smith said. “That could definitely be a strength again for us this year.”

Smith is also excited to see where Hanks will stack up as an individual runner this spring. She placed fourth and eighth in the 100 and 300 hurdles, respectively, a year ago, and Smith believes she’s better now than she was in 2014.

“She’s just come such a long way as an athlete,” Smith said. “Right now, she’s starting where she was at the end of the season.”

Smith may be right, as Hanks earned a state berth on Saturday when she defeated last season’s 100 hurdles state champion, Cody senior Emily Reed, with a time of 17.03.

Junior Anissa Warner also returns for the Lady Panthers after taking silver in the high jump last year with a height of 5-2. Warner also added fifth-place showings in the long jump and triple jump, providing Smith with what should be consistency in that area of his squad.

“There’s some stability there, and she’s a girl that can help get the other girls where they need to be,” Smith said. “Having veteran leaders who also know what it’s like to have success is big for your team.”

Where the Lady Panthers lose some of that stability is throwing. Last season’s shot put and discus state champion, Tori Sleep, is now at the University of Wyoming, while Shawnea Harrington (third in the discus, fifth in the shot put) and Lex Brady (seventh in the shot put) have also graduated. This leaves the PHS girls with a fountain of youth in that area.

“We’re really young in our throws after having graduated three of the best in the state,” Smith said. “But we have several young girls who are coming up and could grow to be great throwers.”

Season outlook

Smith believes competition will be stout again this year, and isn’t expecting an easy path to a title defense for his boys, or a championship season for his girls.

“Douglas has a lot of kids coming back from last year, and they almost got [our boys] last season,” Smith said. “Cody, first in the girls standings, they have a lot of talented girls coming back — Worland too.

“Everyone is going to be tough. It’s going to be a battle all year.”

Smith said he and his teams are looking forward to the Sheridan Invitational (April 25) and the Wyoming Track Classic (May 1), due to the fact that teams from all classes will be competing in those events, providing his athletes with their stiffest competition.

But heading into the Cody Varsity Invitational this past Saturday, PHS’ first meet of the season, Smith said the event would give him an immediate idea of how his teams will measure up with the competition at those bigger events later this season.

After the boys placed fifth and the girls finished second to Cody (both team races included eight squads), Smith said progress was visible from both the boys and girls, but admitted there’s obvious work to be done.

“I think we’re ahead of where I was hoping we’d be, to be honest,” Smith said. “And the kids I was hoping would step up stepped up and did a little better than I thought they would.”