Throughout the years, the Bridgeport High School track and field team has had its share of individual stars from McCoy Award winners McKenna Smith and Abe Merinar to multi-time state champion Kayla Haywood to elite sprinter Wes Eades to name just a few.

 

However, the Indians’ primary weapon in reaching success as a team has been depth.

 

Overall numbers have been down the past couple of seasons but that trend doesn’t appear to be the case for the 2023 season which officially begins on Friday with the annual Connect-Bridgeport Invitational.

 

“We are in the upper 40s for girls and lower 50s for the boys,” BHS boys head coach Grant Burton said. “We’re pleased. We haven’t been this deep in years. It’s going to help the ones the ones who are back at the top, at the bottom and the middle of the pack because they are going to feed off each other and push each other.”

 

It’s not as if the Indians came into the season looking to start from scratch. Several athletes at the top or near the top that cracked the runwv.com top Class AAA times or results are back including Lucas Anderson (sprints), Gianna Cox (sprints), Ty Martin, Cam Hess, Abigail Stewart (high jump) and Sallyanna Hamrick (pole vault) to name just a few.

 

But there have been a ton of new faces show up for the first three weeks of practice and many are familiar names from other sports such as Gabby Reep, Myleigh Smell, Charlie Brazier, Tanner Hathaway, Wes Brown, Aidan Sparks and Beau Ford.

 

“We have a lot of senior football players that came out their freshman year but didn’t get to experience it because of COVID shutting things down,” Burton said. “They came back out this year and they brought some juniors with them.”

 

Girls head coach Ali Burton is excited about the increase in numbers and knows adding athletes the caliber of Reep, one of the best basketball players in the state, and Smell, one of the top volleyball players in the state, can’t do anything but help the team.

 

“We’ve got so many now, a lot of them are trying different things,” Ali Burton said. “We have enough girls to attempt to shuttles teams on Friday. We have a lot more options.

 

“The depth is great and it was an adjustment at the beginning but we were like, ‘We know how to do this because this is how it used to be.’ The numbers just haven’t been like this the past couple of years.

 

“They are working well together and they are showing up ready to work. They have made the first three weeks a lot of fun.”

 

It’s been a challenge for both coaches to figure out who to put where but that’s the type of challenge they welcome.

 

“We will have the option to have very balanced relays,” Grant Burton said. “It’s challenging figuring where to put everybody at but we are finding out we have a lot of versatile athletes. We have a lot of Swiss Army Knives.”

 

Friday’s Connect-Bridgeport Invitational at Wayne Jamsion Field is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. with field events and running events expected to be under way at 5 p.m.

 

Other schools scheduled to compete in the event are Braxton County, Grafton, Liberty, Morgantown, Robert C. Byrd, Shady Spring and three schools from Maryland in Fort Hill, Mountain Ridge and Northern Garrett.

 

On Saturday, the Connect-Bridgeport Invitational for middle schools will take place with field events starting at 10 a.m. and running events at 11 a.m.

 

Editor's Note: Top photo of Anderson and bottom photo of Hamrick courtesy of Joe LaRocca.