PAGE 11 FALL SPORTS 2016 VHS Cross Country Ready To Start Season At Full Strength BY ELYSE BRIGHTMAN Elyse.brightman@plaintalk.net The girls’ cross country team at Vermillion High School is buzzing around news of a new addition to this year’s team. Lexi Plitzuweit, an eighth grader, recently moved to Vermillion from Kentucky where she was a state place winner last season as a seventh grader and will be joining the Tanagers this fall. “She’ll be a great addition to our team,” said junior Maddie Lavin. “We’ll be able to build up from here and have a shot at state.” The Tanagers have yet to see Plitzuweit in action since she arrived too late to join the team for the spring track season, but her, Lavin and teammate Taryn Whisler had been running together during the summer. They are all confident Plitzuweit will make a positive impact on the team, and head coach Kelly Fischbach agrees. “We’re looking for big things from her when she gets here,” Fischbach said. Plitzuweit comes at a time when the girls’ team is coming off a season where they qualified as a team for the state meet for the first time in “quite a few” years, and lost just one senior to graduation. “That’s always our goal, to qualify both teams for the state meet and we did that with some young pretty inexperienced kids,” Fischbach said. Vermillion returns its core group of runners with Lavin, Whisler, Rachel Brady, Melissa Mikkelson on the girls’ side and Justin Sorenson, Cordell Sweeney and Landon Smith on the boys’ side. With the large number of returning runners, Fischbach was able to get into more intense training and more speed work earlier in the season and is hoping to qualify both teams for the state meet in October. “I try not to put too much Vermillion’s Maddie Lavin (410) pressure on, but definitely have high expectations on the girls’ side,” she said. “The boys’ we just look to improve. They are getting a bit more mature, so hopefully will get stronger and then I have pretty high expectations on the boys’ side. “They’ve come in in a little bit better shape, which is always a good thing so hopefully that will translate over.” All of the returning runners can also use state meet experience in track and cross country, both high pressure events, to help calm nerves throughout the season. “That’s not always a bad thing to be a little bit nervous as long as it’s not to the point where it effects what you can do,” Fischbach said. Lavin also has some plans of her own. She won the Class A cross country championship in 2013 and has had two runner-up finishes since then. She said second is not a bad pace to be, but is itching for another championship run after. “I’ve been waiting a while and training really hard, so I’m definitely looking for VERMILLION 8/28 9/6 9/15 9/19 9/22 9/30 10/6 10/13 10/22 Cross Country Beresford Inv. 10 a.m. Canton Inv. 4 p.m. S.F. Christian Inv. 3 p.m. Alcester-Hudson Inv. 3:45 p.m. Yankton Inv. 4:15 p.m. Lennox Inv. 4 p.m. Dakota XII Conf. (SF) 3 p.m. Region 3A (Lennox) 3 p.m. State (Huron) 1 p.m. some redemption and just to go out there and races really fast and push myself as hard as I can go,” Lavin said. Sorenson, the only member of the boys’ team to Vermillion’s Justin Sorenson qualify for last year’s state meet, is looking for the team to continue improving for the team to make an appearance at state after missing out last season. “(Last season) was an improvement. It was better than the year before,” he said. “(We need to) work hard this season in the beginning, so we can be ready for regions and work together as a team.” The Tanagers open 2016 in Beresford on Aug. 26 with the Beresford Invite. “(We’re) just looking forward to the season and hopefully we can build to be ready to go in October,” Fischbach said. The state meet is set to take place on Oct. 22 in Huron. Homan: Every Spot Up For Grabs For VHS Football Team BY ELYSE BRIGHTMAN VERMILLION Elyse.brightman@plaintalk.net Coming into the preseason practices, all the spots on the Vermillion High School football team are up for grabs — meaning no one is guaranteed a certain position. “Offensively and defensively it’s open competition everywhere,” said Tanagers head coach Andy Homan. “Right now we’re going for a week here (in preseason) to see how kids are doing then we’re going to put them in the spots where we think they should be.” Homan may say all positions have yet to be filled, but that is no reason to panic because Vermillion is returning almost all of last year’s team and have 10 senior players occupying the roster. The Tanagers are coming off a 1-8 season from last year with the lone win coming in overtime at Dakota Valley in week four and though the record might not show it, Homan said a lot of good things were happening. “Last season was tough,” Homan said. “We had a lot of good things going in a lot of the games. We played really hard. The score didn’t show how well the kids did at times. We just let a lot of big things happen with turnovers here and there led to bigger scores.” With the returning of all but two “key players” the Tanagers are looking for more wins with the experience the team will bring to the field. 8/26 9/2 9/9 9/16 9/23 9/30 10/7 10/14 10/20 Football vs. Canton at Dell Rapids at Parkston vs. Dakota Valley (HC) at Madison vs. Tea Area vs. S.F. Christian at Lennox at West Central 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 11/10 Class 11A Championship at Vermillion 7:30 p.m. “That core group of kids, I think we’ve had winning seasons all the way from fourth grade up through middle school, so I think this year should be fun and I think we should win some games,” said senior Carter Kratz. The players are not the only ones expecting to see more wins, but Homan and the coaching staff are putting high expectations on the returning players and he is looking to the group of seniors has a whole to step up the team’s play. “They’ve had success from seventh (grade) until now,” Homan said. “It’s going to be nice to have enough seniors and juniors to play out there and not have to play freshmen and sophomores like we’ve had in the past.” Kratz, who spent most of last season at quarterback, is vying for the spot again along with Logan Peterson, also a senior. Vermillion’s Carter Kratz (6) DAKOTA BEVERAGE COMPANY 605 S. 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