Topp speaks of program’s success
MINSTER — The Minster boys track team captured its first state title last season and head coach Larry Topp said he didn’t have any expectations that they were going to win before the meet began.
“When I go down there, I don’t think we’re going to win,” he said Wednesday, speaking members of the Minster Service Club.
“Everybody kept coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, I bet you’re really nervous today.’ I thought that I’m here every year so it doesn’t matter.”
Topp told club members during the meeting that he had some people crunch the numbers before the meet began to see how they would fare.
“I had a couple guys come up [to me] and we do computerized scoring before the meet. They told me that we probably couldn’t even get second; we absolutely could not get into first. I like that kind of thought,” he said with a laugh. “If you try to run sports through a computer, you’re probably going to get some of the odds right, possibly, but you’re not gonna measure the size of a high school kid, I know that. At the state meet, that was pretty ridiculous.”
Topp said after the 4x200 meter relay that he thought any chances they had at winning were gone after a handoff exchange was off.
“I had it figured out that we could possibly win by one or two points and then we lost six or eight right there,” he said.
“We went to the next race and did very well and the next race we qualified for and everybody else was through to the finals. The finals were ridiculous. Each single final ran a PR and that’s all I asked them to do. I said we don’t worry about the state title — do the best you can do — and they did the best they could do.”
Topp said the 4x400 meter relay team set a personal best by six seconds and Alex Albers, who ran on the 4x800 meter relay team as well as the 800 meters and the 1,600 meters, set personal bests in his two individual races.
“[Albers] ran a PR by six seconds. That was after running the 800 and getting a PR by two seconds. That’s not easy to do,” he said.
What was different from previous years for the track team was they didn’t have anyone participating in field events so they were counting on getting all their points from races.
Topp talked about Joseph Slonkosky who ran the 300 meter hurdles and was on the 4x400 meter relay team.
“Joseph snuck through districts to get to regionals in the 300 lows. He shouldn’t have been there. Things happened and he made it,” he said. “Things happened at the regional and he made it to state and then made it to finals.
“I said, ‘Well there’s a point’ because he was in eighth place by a long shot and then he ends up fourth.”
The meet came down to the final race, the 4x400 meter relay.
“We were four points behind and McDonald and us were both in the 4x4. They ran a six-second PR which they would have had to do for us to win and they did and we won,” said Topp. “The rest is history. It was a pretty exciting day.”
Coming off the success of track and field, the cross country team is gearing up for its season. The team returns six All-MAC winners from last season.
“I’ve never had that before,” said Topp. “Last year we had seven AllMAC and six are coming back.”
Topp said the team has been training hard this summer and each member of the team will have run over 600 miles during the summer.
The boys will ran their first race on Aug. 28 in the Milton Union Invitational.
They are scheduled to run in meets on Sept. 4, Sept. 11, Sept. 18, Oct. 2, Oct. 9 and Oct. 16, which will be the Midwest Athletic Conference meet at Coldwater.
The Minster Classic will be at Four Seasons Park on Sept. 18.
Topp encouraged the public to attend.