Thursday, March 22, 2001

By Rusty Bryan
Stars and Stripes

It’s all in fun when the high school track season opens Saturday, but don’t try to sell that to the athletes.

Any team competing Saturday will take part in either the Ramstein or Würzburg Relays, each of which will get the season open with some events that will be seen for the only time this season.

What sort of events?

Try the co-ed throwers’ relay, in which two females and two males who competed in the shot and discus only for each school are formed into a weighty 400-meter relay team.

Or how about 1,500-meter run relay, in which the top four runners’ times of each sex from each school are added together to determine the winners?

Then there are the shot-put, long-jump, triple-jump and discus relays, in which the winner is determined by adding together each performer’s best four attempts in each event.

Although the events are unusual, it will be the rare athlete Saturday who’ll get lost in the partial goofiness of the day. There will be for-real meets the following two Saturdays. After a three-week spring break, there will be three weekly meets prior to the divisional championships May 19 and the European individual championships May 24-25 in Kitzingen, Germany. Besides, to a track athlete, a race is a race, and if it takes federal-government quantities of oxygen debt to win an event, well, what else is new? Rest assured, they’ll still be going all-out.

For Ramstein athletes, particularly, there’s no other way to go.

The Royals and Lady Royals, who dominated the Division I championships last May, return European individual medalists in hurdles winner Ashley Schalz, triple jump king Davon Brown, who also took silver in the long jump and bronze in the 400, pole vault champion Brian Jenkins, discus bronze-winner Brad Goehe, 3,000-meter bronze medalist Rakel Larsen, who finished sixth in the 1,500 and won last fall’s European cross-country championship, discus bronze medalist Valentine Reddic.

If that weren’t enough, the Royals return Brandon Watties and B.B. Oyefeso (triple jump), Shayla Gatlin (100, 200), Devin McCray (110 hurdles) Eric Johnson (300 hurdles), all of whom finished fourth or fifth, just out of the medals.

And Tyrell Hibbler returns to run in the relays. He teamed with Johnson, Brown and the departed Nelson Sanders to win the 1,600-meter relay and joined Jenkins on the gold-medal 3,200 relay team.

Such depth can only be expected, judging from some numbers furnished by Royals’ coach Bruce Steffensmeier.

"Currently, we have 170 young people in grades seven through 12 working out," he said.

Backed by those legions, Steffensmeier, naturally enough, is optimistic about his chances.

"We feel we have the individuals who have the ability to win both crowns again," Steffensmeier said, but "we have no control over the talent levels at the other schools.

"I do feel that Würzburg will field quality groups of both genders. Their female squad continued to develop last year."

They’ll keep it going this year, too, providing the rain and snow stops, according to Wolves coach John Sullivan.

"We’ve got all three of our shot-putters back," he said of a group that includes European silver medalist Alicia Preskey, who also won the European discus title last may.

Also returning for the Lady Wolves are triple-jumpers Shondrelle Sanders, fourth in Europe last May, and Alicia Murray and relay runner Ashley Evans. Add to their prospective point those from male triple jumper John Lasch and European high jump champion Andrew Dorsey and the Wolves look solid.

"We’re hoping we will be," Sullivan said.

Lakenheath’s Lancers should also be in the mix, Steffensmeier said.

"Lakenheath’s ladies were strong last year," he said, and the Lancers will return high jumper bronze-medalist Shannon Fotter. But the Lancers, he said, will miss distance ace Kelly McPherson who waged some epic duels against Heidelberg freshman Megan Isaacs. Isaacs also has left the system, opening the door wide for Ramstein’s Larsen and K-town’s Marissa Reeber to divide considerable hardware from the 1,500 and 3,000.

Kaiserslautern’s boys finished second to Ramstein, but the Red Raiders were decimated by graduation and PCS moves.

Division III boys champion Bamberg and runaway girls champion Baumholder suffered a similar fate, with the Lady Bucs in particular saying goodbye to European multi-medalist Shannon Alexander and long-jump champion Tanya James.

Look for Vilseck, with hurdler Tamera Marshall and sprinter Antonio Harris, to join Bitburg and Patch in the race to dethrone double Division II champion Black Forest Academy, but none of those schools will have the kind of motivation Ramstein has.

There’s a lot more than a mere pair of trophies on the line for the Royals, Steffensmeier said.

"We are dedicating the 2001 season to the memory of Ben Filkill," the Ramstein cross-country and track performer who was killed last fall in a cable-car fire in Austria while on a ski trip.

"Obviously, that will focus the Royals throughout the season."

2001 European H.S. track and field schedule

Saturday, March 24 — Ramstein relays; Würzburg Relays.

Saturday, March 31 — Baumholder, Bad Kreuznach, Bitburg, Giessen, Kaiserslautern and SHAPE at Ramstein; Ansbach, Frankfurt International School (FIS), Hanau, Munich International School (MIS), Vilseck and Bamberg at Hohenfels; AFNORTH, Black Forest Academy (BFA), Heidelberg, Patch, Würzburg and International School of Stuttgart (ISS) at Mannheim; American School in London (ASL), Alconbury, Brussels, American Community School-Cobham (ACS-Cobham), Lakenheath, Menwith Hill and Wiesbaden at London Central; American Overseas School of Rome (AOSR), Aviano, Livorno, Marymount, Milan, Sigonella and Vicenza at Naples.

Saturday, April 21 — Alconbury, Baumholder, Giessen, Hanau, Heidelberg, Lakenheath, London Central and Menwith Hill at Bitburg; Ansbach, Bad Kreuznach, Hohenfels, Kaiserslautern, MIS and Mannheim at Bamberg; Würzburg, AOSR, Livorno, Marymount, Milan, Naples, Sigonella and Vicenza at Aviano; ASL, Brussels, Patch, SHAPE, Vilseck, Wiesbaden and ISS at Ramstein.

Saturday, April 28 — AFNORTH, ASL, Alconbury, Bitburg, ACS-Cobham, Lakenheath, London Central, Menwith Hill and Ramstein (split squad) at Alconbury; Bamberg, Heidelberg, Hohenfels, Kaiserslautern, MIS and Patch at Ansbach; Bad Kreuznach, Brussels, Giessen, Hanau, SHAPE and Wiesbaden at Mannheim; Baumholder, BFA, FIS, Ramstein (split squad) Vilseck and ISS at Würzburg; AOSR, Aviano, Livorno, Marymount, Milan, Sigonella and Vicenza at Naples.

Saturday, May 5 — Baumholder, Hohenfels, Patch, Vilseck, Wiesbaden, ISS at Black Forest Academy; FIS, Giessen, Hanau, Mannheim and Ramstein at Heidelberg; Alconbury, Brussels, Kaiserslautern, Lakenheath, London Central and Menwith Hill at SHAPE; Ansbach, AFNORTH, Bamberg, Bad Kreuznach, Bitburg and MIS at Würzburg; AOSR, Aviano, Livorno, Marymount, Milan, Naples and Sigonella at Vicenza.

Saturday, May 12 — American Schools in Italy League championships at Livorno; Giessen, Hanau, Hohenfels, Ramstein, Vilseck and Würzburg at Frankfurt International School; Bamberg, Bitburg, BFA, Brussels, Patch and SHAPE at Kaiserslautern; Alconbury, ASL, ACS-Cobham, London Central and Menwith Hill at Lakenheath; AFNORTH, Ansbach, Baumholder, Bad Kreuznach, Heidelberg and Mannheim at Wiesbaden.

Saturday, May 19 — Division I championships at Ramstein; Division II championships at Bitburg; Division III championships at Ansbach.

Friday, May 24 and Saturday, May 25 — European championships at Kitzingen.

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