King’s Fork High School’s track and field team is looking forward to being more balanced and well-rounded for this year’s indoor season.

Between the boys’ and girls’ teams, the Bulldogs have close to 60 athletes on their roster. Bulldogs coach Shawn Warren is hoping it will lend itself to the Bulldogs becoming a more balanced and well-rounded team.

In past years, KFHS track and field teams have relied on their sprinters and jumpers to help them in competition. Cross country coach Steve Sheppard has made it a point to develop the long distance team for King’s Fork to make the program more versatile. During the cross country season, Sheppard coached the Bulldogs to a sixth-place finish in regionals.

“I’m especially pleased with the development of our distance program under the tutelage of coach Steve Sheppard,” Warren said. “With the growth of our distance program, we’ll hopefully be able to pick up valuable points in some of those longer races.”

On the boys’ side, the Bulldogs will benefit from the talent they have coming over from the football team. Leading the way for the boys’ team is senior Lawrence Smith, a versatile sprinter who is capable of running any race from the 55 meters to the 500 meters. He is an important part of all the relay teams, and Warren expects Lawrence to be one of the better sprinters in the Southeastern District.

Nasir Davis will also add his speed and versatility to the boys’ team. In his first meet of the season, Davis ran a personal record of 6.65 in the 55-meter dash and just barely missed automatically qualifying for the 4A State meet — 6.64 is the automatic qualifying time. He also ran a PR in the 300-meter.

Junior Bryan Walker is a valuable part of the Bulldogs’ sprint relay team and is considered one of the team’s best horizontal jumpers. Joel Iglesias is a sophomore looking to add an impact as a sprinter. He had an impressive performance in the first meet of the year, and Warren believes he may be one of the team’s best athletes as he continues to get experience.

On the girls’ side, KFHS will be young this year. They have lost some valuable runners to graduation and relocations. Junior sprinter Asia Rawlings will be looked upon to provide leadership. She was a state finalist in the 100-meter outdoors last year, and this will be her first year competing indoors. Junior Ayshia Allen will also be relied upon heavily to pick up points in the sprints and sprint relays. Sophomore newcomer Jahnasia Riddick is showing promise.

In the field events, high jumper Imani Urbanski will be a major contributor. In her first season of indoor track, she jumped an indoor personal record of 4 feet, 10 inches and automatically qualified for the 4A State meet.

In distance races, Paige Summers will be the leader. Summers anchored the 4x800m relay that won the Conference 17 Indoor Championship last season and was the No. 1 runner for cross country.

The Bulldogs like to keep their goals and philosophies simple.

“Work hard and do what you need to do to get better each day, and the other goals will take care of themselves,” Warren said. “Try to do something better today than you did yesterday; to look at each practice as an opportunity to go out and get better and to understand that the harder you work in practice, the easier it will be on meet day. As a coach, I would like to continue to help build King’s Fork into a program that rivals some of the elite programs in the Southeastern District. It will take some time, but I believe we can get there.”