Veteran coaches lead Wildcat track
PRESQUE ISLE — With over 50 years of combined track coaching experience, the Presque Isle Wildcat track and field teams are certainly being led by a strong and capable group of leaders.
Staff photos/Kevin Sjoberg
GLIDING THROUGH THE AIR during his long jump attempt is Presque Isle’s Kyle MacCallum 
during Friday’s varsity track and field home meet.
The Wildcat staff has come up with a unique way to divide up their coaching responsibilities and the athletes are the ones getting the benefits. Officially, the girls’ team is led by Ron McAtee who is assisted by Mike Waugh. Lori Googins leads the boys’ squad, and she is assisted by Joe Greaves. Instead of sticking to these traditional roles, they have instead divided the jobs by specialties. McAtee heads up the throwing events — discus, shotput and javelin — while Googins is in charge of sprints and hurdles. Waugh heads up the distance running events and Greaves is in charge of the jumping and pole vaulting. By dividing out the tasks, it seems to keep the athletes all on the same page with a consistent approach to their events.
The Wildcats lost a number of excellent performers from last year’s squad. According to McAtee, “they were very dedicated to track. They were some of the first to arrive at practice and the last to leave. They were always putting in extra time to improve and they were always willing to help the underclassmen, and were great role models to follow during practice.”
As with most teams, the level of success often depends on the type of leadership you get from team members, and the new senior class seems to be up to the task. There are eight seniors on the 2013 squad, including a couple of first-year track athletes that have come over from other sports. Leading the way is senior Amanda Bennett who has won the girls’ race walk in both meets so far. Junior Bonnie Corey has also been solid having come in second in the race walk in both meets as well. Junior Kaleigh Kinney has scored points in the sprinting events and relays in the early going, while sophomores Jessica Baldwin (long distance events and relays) and Cameo Madore (shot put) are adding to the Wildcat point total. Freshman Regan Nelson has shown a lot of promise early, having won the shot put in both meets, while placing in both the discus and javelin as well. Freshman Abbie Estey has also scored points in both the shot put and discus.
ALYSSA SWEENEY of the Presque Isle Wildcats competes in the 1,600-meter run during the home track and field meet held Friday. 
On the boys’ side, early strong performances have come from seniors Gabe Player with points in hurdles and relays, and Cody Flannery, a first-year thrower who has placed in shot put, javelin and discus. Junior Matt Tilley has placed in the javelin and the relays, junior Mike Donovan in sprints and relays, junior Mitch Ayotte in the jumping events, junior Trevor Levesque in long distance and relays and junior Dustin Drabek in distance events and relays. Sophomores James Churchill (race walk) and Noah Rossignol (distance events) have both been solid thus far, and freshman Zach Rice has been a good performer early in the hurdles.
In addition to these notable early performances, the coaching staff is also excited by the prospects of a number of the other athletes. Some of the athletes were away during vacation and have not competed yet.
Other team members are, for girls, seniors Kali Warner, Samantha Simonds and Emma Michalowski; juniors Jacqueline Lambert, Erikka Murley, Lauren Schiff and Shannon Sweeney; sophomores Loren Edgecomb, Hillary Hartsgrove, Madison Shaw and Brynn Staples; and freshmen Jessie Brown, Emily Colligan, Mandy Graham, Karen Jones, Kerrigan LeBlanc, Rachel Maxwell, Leslie Mejia, Matteah Michaud, Madison Postell and Alyssa Sweeney.
Others on the boys’ team are juniors Lewis Amero, Isaac Estey, Alex Hemphill, Joshua Jones, Garrett Kidney, Kyle MacCallum, Cyle McCleary, Ryder Soucy and Joel Tewskbury; sophomores Austin Albert, Kaleb Donovan, Brian Fournier, John Freeman, Jeremy Gingrich, Brenden Goulet, Mitchell Kelley, Keeghan Lowe, Isaac Michaud and Taylor Miller; and freshmen Parker Lambert, Andrew Lessard, Taylor Michaud, Connor Murchison and Cole Staples.
The manager is Emma Langille.
McAtee is optimistic about this year’s group.
“We should have a great season,” he stated. “We have some first-year upper class students that are still finding what events they like. Our coaching philosophy is that there are 18 different events for boys and girls, and we try to get the athletes to find at least three that they like and can do. We let them try different events in practice after their core workouts to see what they may do better.
“As coaches, we try to steer them in the right direction, and in many cases with our experience, we are able to suggest events to the athletes that they would not normally try. Often they end up with their best results in those events,” he added.
McAtee is also very grateful for the work done in the middle school track program.
“I have to really thank our middle school coaching staff – Kim Wright, Chris Smith and their assistants – for the great job they do in teaching the events and drills,” he said. “It makes our jobs as high school coaches that much easier. They are able to keep practices challenging, fun and competitive all at once which is quite a challenge with 70 middle school athletes.”
