The Recorder on July 11, 2024
ALLEGHENY HIGHLANDS — Long days? Yes.
Some extra time on the bus for road trips? For sure.
Would they have wanted anything else for the spring of their senior year?
Absolutely not!
Abbey Phillips and Zalea Good weren’t the only ones. But they sure were — and continue to be — a great example.
Playing multiple sports in one season is tough. But it’s doable — and almost a necessity in schools with the lower enrollments of Bath County or Highland High School.
Phillips won three Pioneer District titles this spring — one in track and two in tennis — was an honor graduate at BCHS and will attend the College of William and Mary in the fall.
Good doubled up with softball and track, was the valedictorian of the HHS Class of 2024, and will head off to the University of Virginia in a couple of months.
They got it done, both in the classroom and on the field.
“It was definitely challenging,” said Good. “I definitely had to utilize my planner, make sure I had time for homework and practice. It was difficult, but I think it was worth it. I really wouldn’t have given up playing sports for anything.”
The Bath County 4×100 relay team congratulates each other after running at the Pioneer District meet at Giles High School. Pictured are, from left, Zy Coleman, Laci Ryder, Kenley Smith, and Samantha Horne. (Recorder photo by Mark Pifer)
Phillips agreed.
“It definitely wasn’t easy,” she said. “But it wouldn’t have been able to happen without the support from first, my family. I have the most amazing coaches in the world and I wouldn’t have been able to do all of it without my friends and my teammates.”
A combined 14 Chargers and Rams double-dipped this spring.
Along with Phillips, who played tennis and ran track, Kenley Smith, Samantha Horne, Laci Ryder, Zy Coleman and Sierra Gardener all comboed soccer and track.
In Monterey, Good, Annah Moyers and Colleen Adams were both softball and track athletes, while John Wagner, Eli Moore, Patton Hull, Zach Armstrong and Elijah Good doubled up with baseball and track.
When the Rams added a track program three years ago, coach Colby Jackson knew some athletes would have to do multiple sports.
Members of the Highland Ram track team take a break during the Pioneer District championships at Giles High School. (Recorder photo by Mark Pifer)
“I tried to focus on getting them and doing flexibility and mobility training,” said Jackson. “At the end of the day, I started this whole thing because I wanted to benefit them in strength and conditioning, which would help them in everything. Track just kind of fell into the situation. But they needed a strength and conditioning program.”
Highland didn’t have enough girls for a softball team in the spring of 2022, so Good turned to track. “The only reason I joined the track team in my 10th grade year is because we didn’t have enough girls for a softball team that year,” she said. “I was like, I want to do some sport this spring and track was my only option. That first year, it was just me and Jazmine Douglas; we were the only two girls.”
The next year, when the softball numbers increased, Good decided to do both softball and track.
“Both my softball coach and my track coach were very easy to work with,” Good said. “They made it really easy. Long days after school sometimes, but yeah, it wasn’t as hard as you would think.”
Jackson said the Highland athletes went above and beyond. “The travel alone — it’s brutal for kids to sit on a bus that long,” said the Highland coach, who played college football at N.C. State. “These kids — they rally. They rally to the occasion. There’s a lot of heart and I think that comes from there being low numbers here. They know that it’s on their shoulders. At the end of the day, they are there and putting in the work.”
At Bath County, Phillips teamed up with her friend Natalie White to convince veteran track coach Mark Weiss to come out and coach the team.
The senior knew it was her last chance to act on a dream she had since elementary school — running the hurdles.
“I’ve always wanted to run hurdles,” she said. “That was just something I’ve always wanted to do through elementary school. When I got to high school, we never had a track team. So, it was senior year, if I wanted to run track, I was going to have to take some steps to put a program together.
“Couldn’t have done it without Coach Weiss,” she added. “If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”
Weiss coached the track team for years at Covington and shared some athletes in his days as a Cougar. “We shared a little bit in the last couple of years when they were starting the soccer program,” he said. “It hurt us a little bit, but it didn’t hurt as much at Covington because our numbers were pretty big.”
The coach said the improvement of his athletes was tremendous from the first of the year. Many had never competed in a track meet before.
In fact, Weiss’ throwers — Gardner and Smith — had never even picked up a shot or discus before competing in their first meet.
“I think the kids now realize if we just had a little more time to work with them, they all realize how much better they could be,” Weiss said. “The big thing is when you have to rearrange the schedules. That’s the killer, when you have rainouts and you have to reschedule soccer matches and tennis matches. It’s tough, whatever their other sport is, that’s their first choice.”
But Weiss, a former VMI football player, thoroughly enjoyed returning to coach.
“We had a great time,” he said. “Everybody made the best of the limited time we had. Hopefully, we will have many more athletes next season.”