Ryder’s jump crew prepping for indoor season

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut High School jumps coach Mike Ryder doesn’t let moss grow on his key jumpers. You expect to see Ryder and his jumps squad dur­ing the spring track and field sea­son, and they’re also vis­i­ble dur­ing sum­mer months train­ing for USA Track & Field Junior Olympic events.

But what about win­ter months when it’s impos­si­ble to jump outdoors?

That’s never a prob­lem for Ryder and his crew. They can be found sev­eral evenings each week train­ing in the high school aux­il­iary gym­na­sium, get­ting ready for the Ohio Asso­ci­a­tion of Track and Cross Coun­try Coaches (OATCCC) indoor track and field season.

Junior Olivia Small, who placed sec­ond in Divi­sion I Long Jump at the 2012 Ohio High School Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion 2012 State Track Meet, is train­ing to com­pete in the long jump, triple jump and high jump.

Senior Leah Thomas, a two-time OATCCC indoor track and field qual­i­fier who also placed sixth dur­ing the State Indoor Meet in the 60-meter sprint last year, will com­pete in the long and triple jumps.

Sopho­more Avery Kerns, who made it to OHSAA Divi­sion I Region­als last year in high jump, will com­pete pri­mar­ily in the high jump, but Ryder said she might exper­i­ment a bit this year in the long and triple jump.

The only boy on the jumps squad is sopho­more Cole Stark, also a high jumper who will com­pete unat­tached. Ryder said Stark is work­ing on long and triple jumps to add to his ath­letic resume and might com­pete in all three this winter.

While the jumpers began prac­tice before Christ­mas break, they will not com­pete until Feb­ru­ary. Their sea­son opens with meets on Feb­ru­ary 2, 9 and 16 at Ohio State University’s French Field House.

On Feb­ru­ary 17 they travel to the Kenyon Col­lege High School Track Meet, and on March 2 they’re closer to home at the Cap­i­tal Uni­ver­sity High School Meet.

On Sat­ur­day, March 9, the Girls Indoor Track and Field Team, with Stark jump­ing unat­tached, will par­tic­i­pate in the Cen­tral Dis­trict Indoor Cham­pi­onships at Otter­bein University’s Clements Recre­ation & Fit­ness Center.

Fol­low­ing each com­pe­ti­tion the ath­letes wait for num­bers from around the State of Ohio. The top 16 qual­i­fiers in each event from through­out the state at the end of the indoor sea­son are invited to com­pete at the Sat­ur­day, March 16, OATCCC Indoor State Cham­pi­onships held at Akron University.

“We could poten­tially have two of the top 16 qual­i­fiers in all three jumps – high, long and triple,” Ryder said. “Olivia could qual­ify in all three jumps, Leah in long jump and triple jump.”

Asked about the small size of his jumps squad, only four jumpers dur­ing the indoor sea­son, Ryder said the impor­tant ele­ment is the team’s depth.

“These kids work really hard at their craft, and as long as they keep work­ing like they have been I have no doubt that they’ll pro­duce,” Ryder said. “The girls indoor track team fin­ished fourth in the State last win­ter, and jumpers points con­tributed a lot to that effort. On the right day we could have a shot at the State Indoor title.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 9 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.