Just as the return of football season often marks the beginning of fall, the return of track season oftentimes marks the return of spring.

Since track and field involves so many athletes and so many variables to juggle, writing a catch-all season preview can be reductive.

So with this in mind, here are some of the top team storylines to watch for Sandpoint’s 2019 track and field season.

Individual storylines and athletes will be highlighted in tomorrow’s issue.

How will Sandpoint stack up in its region — especially after losing so many impact seniors?

Even though the girls’ team returns as defending league champions — and the boys were 6.5 points away from first-place Moscow — losing eight of the 21 state athletes to graduation will provide plenty of question marks coming into this season.

“Right now we’re probably ranked second for both the boys and the girls,” Head coach Matt Brass said. “We lost a lot of people on the girls’ side, so it’ll be hard to fill all 18 events. On the boys’ side, we have the depth and on the distance side we’re very strong. We lose a little in the hurdles with T.J. Davis graduating, plus Moscow’s sprint core last year had a lot of talent and was really young. Lakeland also has a new coach this year, so we’ll see how that goes. Moscow, right now, probably has the advantage on paper.”

Sandpoint’s distance coach, and Matt’s wife, Angie echoed that sentiment, noting the roster turnover from the girls’ side.

“We don’t have as thick of numbers across the board on the girls side, but the people we have out all really excited to be here and are working hard,” Angie Brass said. “Our distance ladies had a really solid winter and are in a really good place, as far as aerobic foundations.”

But in the Brass’s eyes, the future looks promising thanks to a large and enthusiastic freshman class. Training in Sandpoint Middle School’s gym hasn’t been the most idealistic situation for the Bulldogs — especially newcomers to the sport — yet the underclassmen and women have adapted.

“The freshmen have a really good attitude,” Matt Brass said. “There are some high-performing freshman already, but the attitude is the first thing you have to have. I’m impressed by how well they’ve handled everything.”

Who will be the next generation of Sandpoint sprinters?

No squad has lost more than the sprint team, which looks to find replacements for three of its four legs in the boys 4x100 relay, plus 400-meter state qualifier Ciera Bailey.

“My sprint crew is down to 29 this year, but usually we’re at 50,” Sprints head coach Tom Keener said.

The sprinters who will be on this season’s roster, however, will be stretched to their limits.

Since only the top two finishers in regionals (plus the next-fastest eight times) go onto state, some sprinters will have to eschew the popular 100 meter in favor of the 200 and 400.

“It’s tough to get these sprinters to run a 400, much less a 200,” Keener said. “So last year I forced them to run it. I said, ‘You want a spot in a meet? You’re running a 200.’ I’m going to do that this year with the 400.”

Yet Mother Nature might have as much, if not more of, a say in this than Keener. Winters in north Idaho and outdoor tracks don’t mix. For events like the 4x100 and the 4x200 — where relay hand-offs are measured precisely, sometimes by as much as a step — practicing indoors doesn’t set sprint relays up for success. So Keener and co. have had to improvise.

“I’m thinking that since they can’t get out on the track in this weather, I might not do a 4x200 or a 4x100 in this first Lewiston meet [on March 16],” Keener said. “I might put all my sprinters in a 4x400. We can practice 4x400 hand-offs in [the gym]; we can’t practice 4x100 or 4x200 hand-offs.”

Keener highlighted Braeden Dressel, Tyren Witthaus and as sprinters to watch on the boys side, while junior Maddie Morgan and freshman Victoria Pelkey have stood out for the girls in preseason practices.

How many boys distance runners will make state?

Unlike the sprinters, who are all trying to fill voids left by departing seniors, Sandpoint’s boys distance runners have the depth and range in order to put multiple athletes in the 800, 1600 and 3200-meter races.

But this depth comes with a caveat.

The long-distance team has the opposite problem of their short-distance counterparts. No team has been hamstrung by the qualification rules more than the distance squad. Since only the top two finishers from the regional meet make it to state, Sandpoint’s distance teams have often had internal competition in recent years in order to determine which runners make the state meet.

Although this puts extra pressure on an already close-knit team, Matt Brass notes that the team has adjusted to the hand it has been dealt.

“The runners realize that you can’t phone it in at regionals,” Matt Brass said. “You can’t go out, run slow and try to sprint-kick the finish. If you do that, two people will make it and that’s it. Competitively as a team, they want more of their teammates to go to state, so they know they have to go hard from the gun and run PR-style times so we can hopefully get some of the top eight [at-large] berths to state. I think it makes regionals a little more nerve-wracking, but it also kind of makes it exciting because they know that it’s going to be a chance to PR and have a great race.”

Unlike past years, however, there could be some extra competition for the distance boys. A pair of Moscow freshmen, Korben Bujnicki and Devon Conway, broke up the boys’ cross-country team’s goal of a perfect score (placing all varsity runners from first through seventh place) at the regional race; since then, Sandpoint’s runners have hoped Moscow’s duo would come out this spring push them in track as well.

“Hopefully we’ll have more competition from Lakeland and Moscow,” Junior runner Seth Graham said. “Moscow had a couple good freshman in cross-country, so hopefully they come over in track. It’s a lot nicer to have other schools in the region that are challenging to beat.”

Next year, the road to state becomes tougher: Only the top finisher in each event at the regional meet will earn a state berth. Everyone else will have to wait to see how they fare amongst the remaining top eight automatic berths.

For now, Sandpoint has plenty of athletes that can place in the top two at the regional meet and beyond.

This extends past the distance team: With a do-it-all hurdler, a promising transfer and a school-record holder in the triple-jump, Sandpoint track has a plethora of athletes to watch in 2019.