Scouting Report: Snowflake

Last year, the Snowflake Lady Lobos took home the D3 Team Title with 90.5 points. As a freshman, Reagan Olson secured two State Titles in both of the horizontal jumps. Then on Saturday, the girls swept all three of the relay events. This year, they return with Elaine Zook (Sr.) who placed 4th in the D3 Girls' Final of the 100-meter dash as well Mignon Ritz (So.) who finished 6th in the D3 Girls' 800-meter run. We caught up with Head Snowflake Coach Lynn Johnson to talk about the upcoming season for the Lobos.

Last year, we had a lot of contributors who helped us out and I hope that that'll be the case this year.

Elaine Zook scored several points in the hurdles and in the 4x1. We also have Faith Rogers and Chloe Lyman as our top two returners for the 400m and we're looking forward to a good season for both of them.

Both Reagan Olson and Mignon Ritz were both freshman last year as well as key components to our State Championships. Reagan set two school records in the Long Jump and the Triple Jump.

Nathan Kay (Sr.) was very confident last year in the High Jump and he hopes to break his brother Dylan's school record of 6-11.25.

As a junior, Caleb Uchytil placed 3rd in the Javelin last year and will likely contend for the State Title this May.

Payson Stepp and Ben Lara are a few decent pole vaulters who performed well at the State Meet.

I love giving recognition to individuals but we also know that they alone can't do it by themselves. Lot's of people don't consider track as a team sport but it is. Last year, we took 14 boys and 14 girls to the State Meet and I'm proud of all of our kids for being competitive against private schools and big schools.

We generally open at Queen Creek. After the break, we'll take only our top kids to Chandler Rotary. We want to do well at the Seton Catholic Meet for a kind of mid-season peak. We do another Queen Creek meet called the Southeast Valley Championships. We'll also go to Round Valley, Blue Ridge, and Show Low to make sure that we compete consistently with schools that we'll see at State throughout the season.

We've been doing a lot in the gym due to the weather conditions up here in Snowflake.

We want to come home with a State Championship but our chances are better if we qualify more kids. Therefore, our goal is to take athletes in every event.

There are tons of parallels and life lesson you can learn in any sport. I want my athletes to understand that they can do hard things and that doing hard things will always work to your advantage.