With the month of March unexpectedly here that can only mean one thing for spring athletes: their sport goes into full motion. Many Lakeview athletes are back in their element, either running laps on the track or practicing pitches on the baseball fields.

This upcoming season will look a little different after head coach, Cindy Dickey, retired after multiple years of coaching sprints and relays. Last year’s assistant coach, Bryce Nalbach, will step up to the plate as head track and distance coach and Mara Wilson will be welcomed to the girl’s track team as an assistant coach and in charge of the sprinters.

When asked about Dickey’s retirement senior Sydney Poptic said, “I’m going to miss Coach Dickey, I feel like she’s been here since the start. She was a good coach and knew how to have fun with the team.”

Another senior Stasia Hall also weighed in, “It’ll be a little weird this season not seeing Dickey everyday after school, but I’m excited for my last season and all the new opportunities it’s going to bring.” 

Wilson graduated from Lakeview in 2018 and continued her education at Youngstown State University to study middle childhood education. She was an avid sprinter all throughout high school and ran the 400 meter dash, 400×4 relay, and was a state qualifier in the 300 meter hurdles and continued her running career into college.

For the past week the girls have already started practice out on the track and they’re eager to dive deeper into the season and bring out spikes and learn handoffs. The team has been working on endurance and speed training for the upcoming meets at the end of March. Another senior, Eliza Farr, has been training with her dad during the offseason to condition for her final season.

Farr gave a little more insight to what she’s been up to, “I’ve just been running indoor track for the past couple of weeks and strength training with my dad in the gym. I’m really pumped for this season and just really want to make it back to states.” 

Two years ago the 4×100 team qualified for state and got a run in Columbus. Coach Nalbach wants to make it out of regionals this year and see the girls qualify for states again this season. But this year the 4×100 team is going to have a different look after they lost their anchor, Kylie Mattaoti, who graduated in 2022. The coaches won’t have any trouble filling in the last leg since the team welcomed over 20 new underclassmen.

Returning upperclassman Sydney Peterson will be splitting both distance and sprinting workouts this season after joining cross country team for her first year this past fall. Peterson will actually be doing all three: running distance, handing off the baton, and even a field event for her senior season.

She talked about what’s in store, “I’m really glad to be out running again with a team since cross country. I think the team this year looks great, we’ve had a lot of new underclassmen join and I hope they stick it out because we have the potential to be great. I agree with Coach Nalbach I wanna see the team go to state and I want to win the NE8 Conference Champs again.”

Two years in a row the Lakeview girls track team have been NE8 Conference Champs, and the girls are coming into the season ready to take it again for a third year. The title couldn’t have been possible without some honorable field event mentions like Seniors Brooke Schneider in long jump, Lola English in pole vault, and Sydney Poptic in high jump. Senior Lexi Busefink even jumped into the 300m hurdles for the first time and came in second last year.

This year the girls are coming into the season ready to work for what’s to come in this spring! Good luck to both the girls and boys this season!