White Pine High School “Excited” to start 2025 track & field season

A brand-new track and field season has begun at White Pine High School but the goal remains the same to make improvements and set personal records after each race and meet

“My biggest one is to make sure we PR each week,” head coach Jose Martinez said. “I don’t care how little the PR is. It could be a whole foot; it could be an inch; it can be one second faster. I think believing in each kid that all of those little PRs matter, is a big thing, and I think stressing that with them is the biggest thing.”

Those expectations begin at square one, whether it’s the first day of practice or during the off season.

However, they also come with the challenges, both that can help or make the obstacles a lot tougher.

To begin the season, White Pine headed down to Centennial High School for the Bulldog Invitation, where Martinez’s athletes got to face off against some of the best track and field players in the state, competing against 5A schools.

“It is hard due to the fact that they are a 5A school and we are a 2A school, so the competition looks different,” Martinez said. “ I think being in schools that are big like this, gives each athlete that inspiration to try to push to be as good as the 5A schools, because it’s a big difference.”

Overall, Martinez liked what he saw, especially with the challenge against tough competition from his newcomers, which totaled about two dozen first-time track and field athletes.

“We have a lot of kids that are new to this sport that gave it their all,” Martinez said. “We had an amazing amount of new athletes to the sport that knew 5A schools are big, but they didn’t give up.”

White Pine’s best finish came from one of its returners in the high jump as senior McCaul Nicholes tied for second at five feet, 10 inches with Rhys Johnson from Arbor View, a 4A school. He could not reach six feet, two inches, reached by Friday Ahunanya of Cheyenne, another 4A school in the state.

McCaul Nicholes, who has placed in the 2A state meet in high jump each of the last two seasons, leads a group full of returners and newcomers looking to find any chance of getting over the bar, including his brother Zephen, who was the long jump state champion as a freshman three years ago.

In addition to having some newcomers, Martinez has also added a couple of assistant coaches, who are both new and returning.

Rebecca Bath returns to coaching track and field after taking a short break. She will be coaching the likes of the Nicholes brothers in high jump as well as in pole vault.
Chris Baldwin, who coaches the boys soccer team, continues his coaching duties into the spring with track and field, helping out with the throwing events.

“We have new coaches that have joined us that are pretty passionate about what they’re doing,” Martinez said. We have a new throwing coach with Christopher Baldwin, who’s pretty much taking initiative on throwers and helping them be successful week by week.

“We have Rebecca Bath, who joined us as well, who was part of the team for a while. She was my coach as well. So having her is a big help. It’s good having coaches in events like this, because we can add numbers.”

On the track, the first step is setting the benchmark for success, whether it is the short distances or the long distances.

Martinez said the competition is building among the runners, especially when setting records each week remains the No. 1 goal.

“The biggest thing that we’re working on is making sure that we can cut time,” Martinez said. “We can cut times. We have a lot of kids that are doing it, so it’s easy to give them workouts now where we have one chase the other or see who can give each other competition. That way, it forces them to be more competitive and beat those times.”
Then, once the benchmark is set, then it leads to which four runners can elevate White Pine in the relays.

One of the difficult challenges when it comes to the newcomers finding out their potential individually before figuring out what they can bring in a relay, whether it is with other newcomers or even with a returner.

However, it is one of the good problems to have as a coach knowing the opportunities are out there while figuring out how a player can be successful in a team event in an individual sport.

“We try to find the best athletes as we can. We try to make an A team, a B team, and then a C team, with everybody combined,” Martinez said. “In the very beginning, it’s hard, because we’re trying to see who can possibly take those ropes leading towards divisions and state.

“We have our top four runners, and we want them to be able to do relay as well, but we want them to win their individual races. So, it’s finding a good balance between who can do it at the time and understanding different opportunities for everybody. But at the end of the meet, we try to make sure that every athlete can compete in every relay, because we do want to be successful.”

White Pine heads down to Mesquite for the Ken Jensen Invitational at Virgin Valley High School on March 14 where the Bulldogs will take on both 2A and 3A competition.