On a sunny day behind Leonardtown High School, Shawn Snyder talked to the 80 or so students who have come out for track and field for the spring season.
After 23 years as the head coach of the Raiders, there isn’t much that surprises Snyder anymore about the sport. He is hoping to take this year’s boys and girls teams deep into the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference competition.
“We have about 40 girls and 40 boys,” said Snyder. “There’s a lot of new kids, so we have a lot of freshmen. It’s a very young team. We don’t have as many as we normally have, but it’s a big team. The fact is we are more on the young side than the seniors.”
He added: “We will see what a lot of kids in the field events have to learn about doing hurdles, high jump, long jump, triple jump and throwing. So that takes a while and a few seasons to master. It’s slow and steady. I show them the ropes, and a lot of the leaders on our team do, too. Not just the captains, but a lot of the ones who have been here a while kind of know the deal. They take them under their wing. We have a good group of leaders and athletes on the team.”
Snyder doesn’t worry about having such a big team because he has nine captains between the boys and girls teams, which are JV and varsity combined.
“I don’t have a favorite event,” he said. “I’ve learned to like some of the distance events more, having been a sprinter. I like the sprinting events, but I’ve learned throughout my years what it takes to succeed in the distance events. But I truly enjoy watching them all.”
Snyder added: “On the girls side we are strong in the mid-distance, 400 and 800, even the mile. We are pretty deep and strong in that. On the boys side, I would have to say more in the 800 and mile range. We should be pretty decent in that. There’s a lot of field events we are still learning just because of how young our team is this year.”
Captains this year for the Raiders boys are seniors Noah Eby, Jonathan Ely, Matt Kosten and Jacob Elwell and sophomore Nick Grooms. The girls captains are junior Ella Muja, senior Renee Nosko, senior Kristina Kowalik and senior Isi Hornbuckle.
“It shows their leadership ability,” Snyder said. “I honestly don’t care what year you are, a leader is a leader. We do choose mostly from the seniors, but it’s awesome that Nick Grooms as a sophomore was chosen by the coaches as a leader.”
Ely is excited to start off his last spring season with Leonardtown.
“I’ve done track since seventh grade, but they don’t really count that,” said Ely, who competes in the hurdles and high jump. “So I’ve done track all four years of high school. It’s pretty fun. I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot. It’s definitely made me more confident. A goal that I have that I would like to beat is 42 seconds in the 300 hurdles and I would like to break 5 feet 8 inches in the high jump.
“Another goal that I have on the team is just to help bring people together and help them make friends. That will make the track team more unified. That can be kind of hard to do because although it’s a team sport, it’s also a very solo sport. That’s all I want to do, help people.”
On the girls side, Nosko is looking forward to finishing out her high school career strong.
“I’m feeling good,” she said. “We definitely have a lot of new people, which is great. It’s always good having a young team because we will be able to progress throughout the year. Everyone is back and we are ready to go. For my senior year, I want to go out and have one last good round and just have fun.”
The girls finished the 2018 season with a sixth-place finish at the Class 4A state championships and they hope to beat that this year.
“We had great performances from everyone all-around at states,” Nosko said. “We had lots of depth and just about everyone is back. Everyone we have retained is in a good place. We have a really great chance to beat that in the four-by-eight this year. Parker O’Brien is new to us as a freshman, but the rest of that team are returners. We definitely want the four-by-eight to get back to states and see us win a state title in that relay.”
Snyder hopes to push this year’s team harder than in years before to stay competitive in the SMAC.
“Last year, the girls were good and the guys struggled,” he said. “They either came in second or third place. The girls have been good all my 23 seasons and have truly been top four in SMAC every year. I’ve been fortunate to have that talent. Conference wise, for girls, our goals is to be in the top three. My goals are the same every year and that is to improve on last year.”
The start of a final spring season can be a sore spot for seniors looking to compete one last time, as well as an opportunity to strive to exceed expectations.
“I’m sad about it,” Ely said. “I am going to miss it a lot because this is what I’ve done every spring. I’ve made a lot of memories out here on this field with a lot of different friends. I will probably go on to run track in college. But if they don’t have it, then I’ll just go running by myself.”
Twitter: @Colin_SoMDSport
