South Haven News

By Annabelle Burden

On April 8, 2025 The newly formed South Sumner track team competed at Douglas. This year is new for the track athletes at south haven and caldwell. The two schools have already combined for Cross Country, Football, Softball, Baseball and Cheerleading. Just recently at the beginning of this school year the schools decided to combine for track as well.

This has been a new learning experience for both schools so of course the first track meet would be a bit different. One athlete, thrower Dalton Kelly was asked how the first track meet went now being combined. He said “It wasn’t the best meet of throwing for me but I got all of my nerves out and I threw 120 my first throw then scratched the next three throws.”

Kelly also noted, “On the side of being combined, I don’t like being combined for track because it’s basically like South Haven just goes to Caldwell to practice and we wear the same jerseys for the meets.” He explained further, saying, “There are many kids who don’t get to do the events they like and or want to do because there are other people who do the event just so that person who likes the event cant do it.”

Although being combined is new for the track team it has helped with numbers a lot. Another athlete Addison Heater, who also does cross country, was asked how the track meet went for her now being combined. She said, “Being combined is good for the events that we don’t have enough people for,” noting the positives, but she also stated, “I don’t really like being combined.”

There’s still a lot of getting used to being combined for track. Although right now combining is hard, with time, it does get to be more fun. Eventually, you grow to create a family that will last forever. Even though many don’t like being combined, performance overall is still doing very well, the team has got the opportunity to compete at larger meets with harder competition. Hopefully the new South Sumner Track team continues to grow and continue to do well.