When the Marshalltown girls track and field team competes for the first time this season today at the Boone Invite, you might miss them run if you blink.

The name of the game for the Bobcat girls this year will be speed, considering head coach Chad Pietig said this is the deepest group of sprinters he’s had in quite some time.

“We are very deep in the sprinting, and years ago that was not the case,” he said. “That’s one thing I am really excited about while sitting down and writing lineups, you have a lot of pieces to utilize right now and there’s not a lot of drop off. That’s really encouraging.”

Topping that list of speedy MHS athletes is returning junior Sara Trowbridge. Trowbridge had the fastest marks in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dashes last season, and she took fifth in the 100 at the CIML Conference meet a year ago. Pietig said having her back to lead the sprinters is great, but it’s what’s around her that has him most excited, particularly in the possible relay combinations.

“We have Sara coming back and we saw what she did in the CIML meet in the 100 and 400, so she’s very versatile,” he said. “We have a lot of depth to put around her and build for the relays, I feel like the fifth girl in line isn’t a drop off from three or four. If we load up a certain relay, we can use runners 5, 6, 7 and 8 and still score with them on a different relay. I feel like we won’t have to run our sprinters into the ground like we have in years past to make it through a meet, and that’s very encouraging and a lot of fun.”

Also returning from last season are sprinters Kierra Gardner, Abbey Weldon and Alyvia Chadderdon, who were all right behind Trowbridge on the team standings a year ago.

The depth doesn’t end in the sprints, however, as Pietig said there should also be a strong group of hurdlers competing for the Bobcats, which should make for a competitive shuttle hurdle relay.

“Erica Johnson is clearly the leader of that group, but 2-through-6 are all together,” Pietig said. “There is competition every single day for that group to get into that top-4 and get onto that varsity relay. I feel like with our sprints and our hurdles, that’s how it’s going to be all year. There’s going to be girls scrapping and fighting to get into that ‘A’ group, and that’s just going to make us better.”

While not boasting as much depth, Pietig said the distance races could also be a good place for his team to score. Mia Barajas was the top runner in the 800 and the 1,500 a year ago and she is back and ready to compete, but joining her is freshman Phoebe Hermanson, who qualified for the state meet in her first year running cross country in the fall.

“I am really, really proud of Phoebe, McKenna Ainsworth and Mia Barajas. Those girls ran 300 miles between cross country and track,” Pietig said. “They ran all winter, snow, it didn’t matter. They logged the miles and came in in such good shape.”

Hermanson specifically has already made a name for herself in the distance world with her state qualification in cross country, but Pietig said her value doesn’t stop with her ability to run long distances.

“In these first three indoor meets she’s already shown her versatility,” Pietig said of Hermanson. “She went 11:33 in the 3,000 and she’s already gone 2:35 in the 800 and followed that up with a 69-second 400, just 20 minutes after she won the 800.”

Off the track is where Marshalltown takes the biggest hit from graduation, as the Bobcats will have to replace state high jump qualifier Regan Mazour and state-throwing qualifier Grace Metzger.

Luckily Chadderdon returns as the top long jump qualifier from a year ago, and Pietig said while his field participants might lack in experience, they don’t lack in talent.

“Alyvia is a senior long jumper and Gabby [Himes] is the lone junior in the high jump, and then we have two freshmen behind her,” he said. “Throwing-wise, they are all freshmen and sophomores. I feel like we have good athletes in our field events, and I don’t think it will take them long to come along.”

Pietig said specifically girls like Mia Rasmusson in the high jump and Lilly Duff, Hayden Oetker and Klaudia Hernandez in the throws could have break-out seasons.

“We don’t have that returning varsity thrower that we did last year, but we have some quality athletes that are really pushing each other to get better,” he said. “Luckily we have some time to work with them and I expect they will all be doing big things by the time we get to the end of the year.”

Youth is as much a theme for this season of Marshalltown girls track and field as depth is, which is yet another reason Pietig said he is excited for the girls to get started today at Boone.

“Eight out of our 44 are upperclassmen, so we are very heavy on the freshmen and sophomores,” he said. “But Phoebe is a state qualifier in cross country and is already running like a veteran on the track. They don’t really understand how good they are yet.”

Even with the positive outlook his team has going into the season, Pietig said it’s still going to be a grind with how tough the schedule competing in the class typically is.

“It’s a tough conference and very tough meets, we don’t shy away from any of our meets and we can go to some of those meets and we may see a score that looks kind of ugly, but that’s the kind of competition that we’re going to have to get through at districts and to get to the state meet,” he said. “That’s our ultimate goal, we want those last three weeks to be their best of the season, whether that’s conference, districts or state depending on where they are in the lineup. That’s what we are building towards and I think our schedule tests us for that.”

At the start of the season now, Pietig said he’s not as worried about where his girls will fall in the team standings, he just wants them to compete as well as they can in their events and the team score will take care of itself.

“Individual successes leads into team scores, and as soon as they realize that they are competing not just for their own time but for those team points, I think we will be OK,” he said.