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Commentary by Kevin Carolan
SIERRA VISTA —The Buena track team has underperformed all season in dual and three-way meets. This has left opposing coaches, parents and fans wondering why.
According to the new coaching staff at Buena, it’s all by design.
The new concept involves getting more young athletes, the freshman and less experienced runners, jumpers and throwers, involved in meet competition, while limiting the stronger, more experienced athletes to only one or two events in mid-week dual/tri-meets.
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“We are looking at giving those young athletes the chance to compete in meets and giving us coaches a better chance to evaluate them,” boys coach Tate Dunham said. “While at the same time, we will limit the number of events the ‘varsity,’ or more experienced athletes will compete in during those mid-week dual or triangular meets.”
Unlike many of the other high school sports, football, basketball, volleyball, etc., there are no separate junior varsity or freshman competitive schedules for track and field.
“The Arizona Interscholastic Association allows 12 meets a season and what coach (Regina) Moffett and I are looking at for the future are reducing the number of mid-week dual/triangular meets and increasing the number of big meet/invitationals so as to give our ‘varsity’ athletes more competitive meets,” Dunham said. “For the most part, the mid-week duals serve virtually no purpose for our better athletes. They need the ‘big meet’ competition.”
Buena currently has eight mid-week dual/triangular meets on their schedule and four weekend invitationals, The Ted James (Douglas) Invitational, the Rincon Relays, the Casa Grande Invitational and the Mario Castro (Sunnyside) Invitational.
Since track and field does not fall under the CalPreps Rating System, teams do not have to be concerned with state meet qualification based on their ranking through won-lost records and strength of schedule.
State Meet qualification is done through the nine regional meets and achieving state meet qualifying standards at the big meets during the regular season.
“We are not as concerned with wins and losses in those small mid-week meets than we are with getting our youngsters experience on the track,” Dunham said. “It also will allow our young athletes to run against the opposition’s top athletes and not have them go against their stronger teammates as well as their opponents.”
“Since all the big meets have restrictions on the number of athletes you can enter in an event, these young, less experienced athletes do not get a chance to compete at the upper echelon.”
Last week’s tri-meet against Sahuaro and Sabino was the second meet this season the new concept was used by Dunham and Moffett and was reflected in the score in which the Buena boys had only one winner, C.J. Metcalf in the 1,600-meter run.
The Colt boys scored only 17 points, while the Lady Colts had only six.
Sahuaro won both meets, 114-44-17 in the boys competition and 119.5-48.5-six in the girls competition.
“Even though we didn’t put many points on the board, the young athletes had a chance to compete against other schools without having to compete against their more experienced teammates,” Dunham said.
In Wednesday’s upcoming meet against Marana Mountain View at Loveless Stadium, Dunham will use his varsity athletes very sparingly, saving them for the Rincon Relays in Tucson on Saturday.
The coaches’ concept is a good one and seems reasonable, providing they can get approval for reducing the number of small mid-week meets and adding a few more invitationals to give the “varsity” athletes the stronger and better competition at the highest level.
Sports reporter Kevin Carolan can be reached at 515-4621, or by e-mail at sports@svherald.com.
Wiillie wrote on Mar 2, 2009 7:42 PM: