First-year West Holmes head track coach Rich Patterson uses a pyramid approach to conditioning – developing strength to provide the foundation, building endurance and teaching strong fundamentals throughout the regular season, and tapering off to maintain good form by the time the conference, District, Regional and State meets roll around.

It’s a good thing it’s just a philosophy, were it an actual pyramid, like the sun-dried mud-brick structures built in ancient Mesopotamia or the sandstone constructs found in Egypt, it may have crumbled into a muddy mess or blown away in the wind this spring.

“I can’t wait until we have a meet where the wind’s not blowing in everybody’s faces and the rain’s not coming down, so we can see how fast we can get,” said Patterson after watching his team host Ohio Cardinal Conference rival Clear Fork in a dual meet, Tuesday, May 3, on another cold, gray, windy and wet day. “Hopefully we can get some good weather, get the rain stopped, the winds not blowing and see what we can really do. I’ve had cold years and hot years, but this is the wettest year I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve been coaching since 1989 and running since 1976. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

But he’s also never seen anything like the young group of speedsters who persevered through the weather once again to lead the West Holmes girls to a 74-63 win over the Lady Colts, as freshman Carly Woodruff won the 100-meter dash by almost a full second (13.5), freshman Paiten Strother did the same thing in the 200 (28.3), and sophomore Kendra Martin won both the 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles with times of 17.3 and 50.9 seconds.

Another sophomore, Ashley Schulz, finished second in the 300-meter hurdles just for good measure, while Woodruff was just .2 of a second off of Martin’s pace in the 100 hurdles, prompting Patterson to say, “Carly and Kendra in the hurdles are always pushing each other. Right now they’re just going back-and-forth and I think it’s good for both of them and I think it’s going to work out well for us, especially in the conference and District tournaments.

“But that whole crew there,” he added, “those young sprinters all push each other in practice and it’s nice to see when you have six or seven people really going after it.”

And not just in the individual events, as Martin, Woodruff, Schulz and Strother also teamed up to win the 4 X 100-meter relay in a time of 54.5 seconds, while Martin, Strother and Woodruff were joined on the third leg of the 200 meter relay by freshman Abby Mast and won that race with a time of 1:57.3.

Adding a little distance, Schulz and Mast even teamed up with junior Nichole Peterman and freshman Alexis Kandel to win the 4 X 400-meter relay in 4:36.

But it’s not just the young sprinters who are pushing one another to succeed for the Lady Knights, as sophomore weights specialist Natalie Abraham won the shot put with a throw of 29’ 1/2”, finishing second in the discus event (90’ 3”), five-feet behind junior Rebecca Chamberlain (95’ 11”) whose longest throw of the season was over 110’.

“Natalie’s really coming on,” explained Patterson after watching his team sweep the weights events while finishing first in 12 of the 16 overall events. “It’s great to have Rebecca there to compete with her. They push each other really hard even in the non-throwing parts of practice. Having those two competing against each other has just done nothing but help both of them.”

The Lady Knights claimed victory in two other events against Clear Fork by going above and beyond as junior pole vaulter Amy Boyd flew above the 8’ 6” bar to win that event and Strother flew almost a full foot beyond the runner up from Clear Fork in the long jump by launching herself 14’ 6”.

The West Holmes girls captured one more first-place finish to wrap up their 11 point team win when freshman distance runner Alexis Eliot used her unwavering, methodical running style to win the 3,200-meter run by a full minute (14:05), as Patterson pointed out, “There’s probably not a harder worker on our track team than Alexis. She has come on like gang busters this year. She’s a machine out there.

“If you watch her run, her expression doesn’t change, her stride doesn’t change and a lot of the people that take off faster than her get run down about a mile and a half into the race because she hasn’t slowed down a bit.”

There are a lot of distance runners on the boys’ side of things who better get used to that same kind of thing when competing against the Knights, as the boys distance runners stayed solid against Clear Fork, with 2010 State cross country qualifier Cully Gordon (10:31) leading a one, two, three West Holmes finish in the 3,200, leading Tim Young (11:21) and Sam Boyd (11:23) across the finish line, while Drew Alexander (5:06) and Boyd (5:15) also took the top two spots in the 1,600.

“Coach Carla Pringle has done just a fabulous job with the distance crew,” said Patterson. “And those guys will all be back next year. Drew Alexander is the only junior, the rest are freshmen and sophomores, so I’m excited and looking forward not only to the end of this year, but for future years as well.”

This is the last year of high school competition for the Knights lone senior, Luke Morris, however, as the speedster returned to action for the first time since hyperextending his knee during the long jump event at the Triway Invitational on April 23.

“Being a senior, he really wants to end this year well,” said Patterson after watching Morris win the 110-meter hurdles by more than a full second (15.2) and cross the finish line first in the 100-meter dash (11.5) by the slimmest of margins ahead of freshman teammate Dalton Zickefoose (11.6). “He’s had to miss a couple of meets where he would have been up there, if not the MVP of the meet, so he’s still disappointed about that, but he’s still got the important stuff coming up with conference, District, Regional and State.”

While Morris’ two victories were two of only six for the Knights against Clear Fork, West Holmes did win another speed event as sophomores Dakota Wells, Matt Miller, freshman Barry Phillips and junior Marcus Glassford teamed up to win the 4 X 200-meter relay in a time of 1:43, but with the Knights’ only other gold medal performances coming from the pole vaulting tandem of sophomore Grant Hay and junior Sloan Le – who both cleared 12’ to beat the nearest Clear Fork competitor by a foot – the Knights fell to the Colts in the final team score 73-64.

With the OCC tournament to be held inside Knights Stadium on Friday, May 13, Patterson and company are at the top of their philosophical pyramid, which has held strong despite the nasty weather thus far throughout the spring.

It would be nice to see the weather clear to see the kind of results that pyramid approach has truly produced.

Also because, as Patterson explained, “I’m getting so sick of this, just like everybody else.”