Todd Trutna returns as head coach of the Big Lake Hornet boys and girls cross country teams for 2021.
Trutna retains his full allotment of coaches he ahd last yeat including Andy Noble as assistant varsity coach and Jean Hagberg as middle school coach.
Trutna has 50 youngsters on the squads in grades seven through 12.
On the boys side, Trutna has three runners he is keeping a close eye on in terms of success for the year. One is Kade Layton, a junior who is returning as the Mississippi 8 Conference champion and a state qualifier in 2020. Owen Layton, Kade’s younger brother in the 10th grade, is a conference runner up from the previous two years and was also state qualifier in 2020. The third boy runner is Christian Noble, a senior who finished third in the conference last year and was a state qualifier.
“These three set the tone for our conference team championship last year,” says Trutna. “All three of these runners are very athletic and have competitive natures. They are willing to quite literally put in that extra mile to improve. The rest of the team feeds off their example. Jack Leuer, David Guyse, and Tanon Jacobson have all looked ready to pick things up where we left off last year.”
For the girls, Trutna has his eye on Emilee Doperalski, a sophomore, who was all-conference last year.
“Emily is a very consistent runner, whose strong suit is running evenly paced races,” says Trutna. “The girls graduated two all-conference runners from last year’s squad, so Emily will lead a team that will be lacking in varsity experience, but has tremendous potential.”
Trutna says it will be exciting to see how this girl’s team improves throughout the season.
“Grace Heider, Campbell Slattery, and Samantha Burton have shown some good improvement already during our practices.”
Trutna is grateful he has no problem filling his rosters with runners even though students these days have plenty of choices when it comes to atletics during the fall season.
“I just want kids to be involved in something, whether that is cross-country, volleyball, football. knowledge bowl, pep band...life is not a spectator sport,” he says. “I want kids to get off the sidelines and try things.”
Trutna says the sport of cross-country is a bit unique from most of the other fall sports.
“While cross-country is a team sport, it can be done individually,” he continued. “One of our goals is to create lifelong runners. Cross-country is a timed activity-it’s you against the clock. Runners can find success in lowering their times through the season regardless of where they place in a race.”
Trutna says this allows runners to have very measurable goals.
“There is also no bench in cross-country. I could have 100 kids out for the team and all 100 would participate fully in all our meets.”
Trutna has his teams practice about two hours each day, and one of our team’s mantras is, “What are we doing during those other 22 hours?”
“Are we fueling our bodies with the right kinds of foods?” he asks his athletes. “Are we getting enough water? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I running too fast on the easy days?”
Nutrition is important to all athletes, not just runners,” he says.
“You can follow the best training plan to a T, but if you don’t take care of those other 22 hours, it’s going to lead to poor performance or injuries.”
The boys team consists of: Alton Ahamed, Oliver Aronson, Bradley Ausk, Adiel Cisneros, Matthew Denzen, Gavin Donner, Carter Erickson, Nicholas Erickson, Trent Erickson, Gavin Flavin, David Guyse, Peter Halvorson, Luke Hugo, Tanon Jacobson, Kade Layton, Owen Layton, Jack Leuer, Spencer Lommel, Kaiden McLearen, Christian Noble, Jonah Overby, Jacob Polacec, Isaiah Prom, Lucas Stevenson, Gavin Vold, Spencer Vold, Kale Westgaard and Kevin Winkelman.
The girls team consists of: Jenna Ages, Alayna Boe, Samantha Burton, Morgan Czech, Emilee Doperalski, Paiton Ganley, Grace Heider, Elspeth Johnson, Erin Kjellberg, Xandra Lindman, Lisa McMullen, Georgia Morris, Rylie Ostrom, Olivia Potter, Nicole Rempel, Jadyn Rust, Brynn Scheer, Jessicah Schmidt, Campbell Slattery and Sophia Tienter.
