NAPPANEE – Quietly piecing together a very prolific frontline to its girls track program, two huge pieces to NorthWood’s program will be questionable coming into the spring outdoor season.

The IHSAA Girls Track State Finals in Bloomington will be the ultimate goal for all track athletes that suit up, but especially so for a pair of burners for the Panthers. Junior Riley Hershberger will test out if her knee has fully healed after tearing her ACL as a sophomore in basketball. Senior Erica Stutsman will also find out if her leg is ready to go after fracturing her fibula during a skiing trip this past winter.

As the two sat in a conference room in the NorthWood athletic office recently, both would like to think they are ready to go. Meet situations will likely be the only thing to say otherwise.

“Coming into high school I didn’t think I was going to medal, maybe just at the NLC or sectionals,” said Hershberger, who was a state finalist in both the 100 and 300 hurdles as a freshman. “Once it was NLC and sectional time, I was doing pretty good. Then regionals came and I felt like I was doing better than expected.

“300 hurdles, they don’t have those in middle school and that was my first year trying to figure out what to do with that,” Hershberger continued. “I feel like the distance set me back a little bit.”

Hershberger was having some kind of rookie campaign in 2016. She won the NLC title in both hurdles events, then smashed the sectional record with a brisk 14.90 in the 100 hurdles at the sectional, claiming both hurdles titles in the process. A pair of runner-up finishes in the regional sent Hershberger to state, where she medaled in the 100 with a sixth-place time of 15.06 and took 15th in the 300 at 46.05.

The knee injury during her sophomore basketball season had Hershberger miss the entire spring track season, and she elected to not return to basketball this past season, instead choosing to focus on getting in shape for track. In addition to the hurdles events, Hershberger is also looking to help the Panther relays, where the 4×400 was a top-three finisher at both the NLC and sectional.

“The injury has taught me a lot and it’s just a mental thing and you are totally fine,” Hershberger said in dealing with the injury. “There are still days sometimes when I struggle, where I think ‘what if?’ or that I’m not feeling right and it must be my knee. Once I got past a certain point in my recovery, I just fought past it. It’s stronger than it’s ever been since I hurt it and I’ll be fine.”

Stutsman had a meteoric rise last season. Already running as one of the top middle and long distance runners in the area, Stutsman became elite as a junior in 2017. Stutsman was able to drop her championship times in each of her four postseason runs, winning a title in the 800 at both the NLC and sectional, then taking second at the regional before emerging on the big stage with a 2:13.21 time at the state finals, taking third overall.

“There’s two ways to look at it,” began Stutsman. “The one way would be to look at it as me being just an athlete. Try it out and see what I can do with it. Just activity to tolerance. We’re taking it slow, and I’ve been able to get some significant runs in.

“The other side of it is that I’m a high schooler, a teenager. You could look at it like I’m just a track athlete, why would you ever go skiing? I’ve gotten a lot of reactions like that, but there’s the side of it like I’m young and I won’t be young forever. Learning when you are 60 is not as easy learning when you are 18 or 17. I’d been skiing one other time before and I was relatively new. I’ll learn from it. But I definitely don’t regret going skiing.”

The injury for Stutsman came on a youth group ski trip, where she was making a final run down the moguls and had her boot push against her leg during a tumble. The triangular fracture luckily wasn’t major, and has almost fully healed for the Indiana Wesleyan-bound Stutsman. Pool work and some light land work in the dregs of the winter has lent to some road work and now miles on the track. She feels like she’s ready to go.

“You can’t go back and can’t change anything,” Stutsman said. “Ultimately, you just have to trust God and his process. He knew this was going to happen and trust his timing. When I will be able to reach top speed again and when I will be able to peak.”

Coach Mark Mikel couldn’t be more thrilled to have his biggest guns back on the track. Combined with a host of very good pieces, Mikel feels his team could make a run at several events at the NLC and sectional meets, and take a stab at a big placing in the team standings.

Seniors Kate Jarvis, Kenzie Moren and Jemima Robinson all will have big roles with the team. Jarvis is a distance force and could give NorthWood big points in the long runs as well as the 4×800 and 4×400 relays if Mikel so chooses to utilize her there. Moren has the ability to run with anyone in the conference in the sprints, and was a couple tenths of a second off the pace in qualifying for the state finals last year. Robinson will help in the field, where Mikel points out Karli McBrier also has had a good throws preseason and could surprise come the postseason.

“The potential of this team is off the charts, and it’s such a fun team to be around,” Mikel said. “We’ve been on the verge so many times. So many individuals and team accomplishments where we just need to take that next step.

“If we learn to love and serve one another, then we have the potential to be a great team.”

The Parisi sisters, Lexi and Kali, as well as Neely Trenshaw and Whitney Wolfe highlight a very good junior class, and the addition of Maddy Payne, the 6-2 sophomore more known for her basketball prowess, to high jump will help tremendously. Freshmen Alea Minnich, Reagan Koble, Katie Montgomery and Kendal Miller will further the movement.

NorthWood’s track home will be wherever someone wants them this season. Construction on the school campus has the field events unable to function, so all of the NorthWood meets will be on the road. The team’s outdoor opener against Tippecanoe Valley for Tuesday was cancelled, putting the target then on the season opener Tuesday, March 27, with South Bend Riley and Mishawaka, the location unknown as of this story publishing.