Roadrunners prepare for upcoming season

Sedalia, Mo.-The State Fair Community College (SFCC) Roadrunners men's track and field team has been busy preparing for the upcoming season. Head coach Brad Hagedorn likes what he has seen from his team recently in training.

"I thought we started the fall kind of behind a little bit," said Hagedorn. "Our kids have transitioned and kind of gotten through some of the tougher workouts. We are starting to practice pretty good. Zeshaun Ballance-Gray looks fabulous. He is as good as he has ever been. Freshman Marcel Milner also looks fabulous in training. Terrion Thompson is a freshman who has been practicing great. He is super talented. TJ Brown is a long jumper who is also a very hard worker. Colby Jenkins is a two-time state champion who also looks very good. We are going to try to do some multi event stuff with him. Several of our sophomores have been great leaders. They work hard; they do extra stuff in their off time. The last couple of weeks have been positive."

Coach Hagedorn expects the leadership on this year's team to come from people like Ballance-Gray as well as Terrion Thompson, along with Raul Ramirez Steven Skelton.

"They do things the right way," said Hagedorn. "They are preaching hard work to the other kids. Most of them have been around the program for a year."

Coach Hagedorn believes that the horizontal jumps and the throws will be among the strongest events for his team this season.

The Roadrunners will face a very competitive schedule. The season will begin with a trip to Maryville, Mo. to compete in the Mel Tjeerdsma Classic on Saturday, Dec. 6. After the holidays, SFCC will return to competition at the SEMO Redhawks Invite. After two more events in January, SFCC will open February at the NWMSU Bearcat Invite on Saturday, Feb. 7. SFCC will have three more opportunities to earn their qualifying marks before the NJCAA Indoor National Championships on Friday, March 6. The outdoor season will begin shortly after the completion of the indoor campaign.

"We're going to practice appropriately throughout the week to prepare kids for the weekends and then we're going try to compete well," said Hagedorn.

The track and field program has made some additions to their coaching staff with the additions of Steph Kuhlman who will help coach the long sprinters and longer distances as well as the pole vault. Sean Carolan will join the staff in January as a volunteer assistant. Carolan will help with the short sprints, some horizontal jumps and the multi events.

Coach Hagedorn has some goals he would like to see his team accomplish this season.

"We want to put people on the podium," said Hagedorn. "As coaches we are competitive, we want to see our kids do well at the meets that we go to. We preach all week that meet day is pay day. You go to work all week and put in the effort, and it is time to get paid on Saturday. We are going to go and put our best foot forward and try to PR as many times we can and hopefully, it is good enough to get us to the national meet."

The Roadrunners have some keys to accomplishing those goals.

"We have to be consistent," said Hagedorn. "We have to make sure that our grades are good. We also have to be able to do the work. I have a lot of faith in our coaching staff to be able to coach them well. The kids have to be able to do the work every day."

David Rohrbach

SFCC Athletics