Fifteen years since its last State title, the women’s track and field team won’t head into the postseason as the favorite. However, according to Head Coach Tim Mylin, they have a chance to win State this season.

“We’ve had an excellent season so far,” Mylin said. “We’re looking at, primarily, six events we can score in at the State meet. Now, if somebody really improves a lot in the last month, that may change, but right now, that’s pretty much where we’re at.”

One of those events is the 1600-meter relay, spearheaded by sophomore Rachel Dixon, who ran the relay during the State meet last year.

“Once you get to a big race like that, there’s a lot more people and you have to deal with the stress,” Dixon said. “That was really good experience for me, to learn from that.”

The other five events mentioned by Mylin, aside from pole vault, are all long-distance events.

“(This is) probably one of the strongest teams I’ve ever had in terms of distance events,” Mylin said.

With the competition at a high point, junior Anna Schmitz, who runs the 3200-meter, still doesn’t know if she’ll be running in the postseason.

“They haven’t announced it yet, but I’m hoping that I am (on the varsity team),” she said. “Our team’s really good this year and we hope to do well in State.”

According to Mylin, CHS will be one of the main contenders, along with Warren Central, Hamilton Southeastern and Lawrence Central.

“I would be surprised if it wasn’t one of those four teams that ended up winning it,” Mylin said.

For the team to take the title, Mylin said, they’ll have to accumulate points from a variety of events.

“It’s hard to win a track and field title with the State championship cross-country team (because) there’s not enough (long-distance) events to get enough points,” Mylin said. “The two years that we won State, we also had a very good hurdler, we had a very good 4 x 400 relay, we had a very good thrower, so we were able to cover a few other events in addition to distance.”

After finishing in third at the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference (MIC) meet on May 2, which Mylin described as a “little State meet,” the team will have to make some improvements in order to top the dress rehearsal.

“If everything comes together and we can get everybody healthy and maybe get a couple more people under a state standard time, which would allow us to run three in the Sectional, than that would give us an even better chance of maybe having an outstanding State meet,” Mylin said. “Do we have a shot this year at winning State with the distance group we’ve got and a good pole-vaulter and a good 4 x 400? Yeah, because we can cover our bases better than ever in those four distance events this year, I think…I’m counting us in this year as having a shot.”Rachel Dixon, sophomore 1600-meter relay runner, performs a warm-up during practice. She said her experience in the relay last year will help her deal with stress this year.