The South Loup girls’ 2025 track season gets underway this weekend at the annual UNK Indoor Invitational on Saturday, and the girls and their coaches are ready to get off and running. Under the leadership of longtime coach Mike Weverka and a talented team of assistant coaches, the Lady Bobcats are looking to do big things this year.

Weverka has been the head coach of the girls’ team for as long as South Loup has been a co-oped program, which is about

CONT. PAGE 12 15 years. He is assisted by Lane Chesley, Rick Peterson, Nicole Recoy, Diane Spangler, and Zac Sweet.

“We all bring something different to the table,” Weverka said about the coaching team. “We stay out of each other’s way and it’s worked well since we started. The head coach means you’ve got to get the entries in.”

The 2024 South Loup girls were conference runners-up and would like to be able to claim the title they narrowly missed last season. Ella Cool was a state qualifier last year, and she returns for the Lady Bobcats this season.

Returning letter winners for the team include Cool, Ivy Tullis, Asa Starr, Erin Fitzgerald, EvaLyn Wonch, Jade Bierman, and Natalie Trotter. The team has 23 girls this year, and Coach Weverka is excited to see several freshmen join the ranks.

“There for a few years we were really strong in both the distance and short races, but the last couple of years we have been stronger in our mid-distance to distance races. This year, the way it’s looking, we are going to be even across the board,” said Coach Weverka. “We’re pretty excited - we’ve got a pretty talented crew. We have had some girls already turn in some good times at practice, so that looks good.”

Along with the group of incoming freshmen, the Lady Bobcats have several sophomores and juniors who are going out for track for the first time since junior high. “Looking at our youth, I plan on all of them making an impact on our team. We are expecting big things from our veterans, but we’ve got so many new girls so this is going to be exciting. Especially with the speed that we haven’t had in a while,” Coach added.

“Track builds athletes, and it will help you for your favorite sport,” Weverka continued. “By the time we get them, it is at the end of the year and they are tired and sore. Some are still dealing with injuries, and then we ask you to come outside and work hard. I think for the girls especially they go out just to be better athletes for the sports they enjoy. It’s great to have them!”

The coach said his biggest goal for his team is to have them set their own personal standard and raise those. “That will help us throughout the season and in the long run for those sports they enjoy most. So that’s really our goal, to have them flip the switch in their mind to have high standards for themselves.”

Weverka sees the mindset as the primary weakness that the girls may have to overcome - it all comes down to just being confident, he said. “If you can better yourself by a tenth of a second, that’s getting better. You have to have the confidence to attack that and make sure you give it your all,” he shared. “Some of the veterans have that confidence, and that’s a strength. Hopefully, that will bleed out to the rest of them. We are going to compete in every event we are in this season, and we are going to be right there pushing the envelope. I think these girls are really going to shine in track this year. Building their confidence is something we are really going to work on this year. I want them to be the bad girls of the bunch, to be the team that when others see us coming their response is - ‘Oh crud, South Loup is here’.”