Almost every team is excited to start a new season, no matter what the sport.
But for the Calvary Lutheran track and field team, things might be at their most exciting since the school started the sport.
Start with the simple fact of numbers.
"Probably the most important thing for us so far, being a smaller school, is that we only have 100 or 110 students or so total, and we have 31 kids on the team," said Calvary coach Kerri Morris, whose team starts the season today at the Russellville Quad. "We're very excited. The first few years, we had just a handful of kids to put in events. This will be the first year we will be be able to field someone in every event."
One other thing helping drum up excitement in this year being Calvary's first in a conference, as it's a member of the Central Counties Activity Association.
"Track is one of the sports (in the CCAA) that has a championship, so the kids are excited, it's a new concept for them," Morris said. "And being in this conference, we're going to see a lot of these teams at a lot of our other meets this season, so will have idea how we match up before we get there."
Calvary doesn't have a home track, so the CCAA championship meet will be held April 27 at Southern Boone.
"It's nice that they're letting us host it there, now we're just really trying to get across to kids how exciting this is," Morris said.
Having a home meet 15 miles away isn't that strange for a team used to making the best of things.
"For practice, we're either out in the field or on the parking lot," Morris said. "Most of the Class 1 schools like us don't have our own track. That's just the nature of it."
Morris said the team is ready to get the season started, even if the larger numbers have made practice a little bit more difficult.
"I'm the only coach, although I am very fortunate to have two volunteers," she said. "The biggest trouble is being able to help everyone. They're good kids, and they take direction pretty well. But you're going from event to event, and they're still high school kids, so they still need some supervision.
"So it does make it a little challenging. But smaller programs know how it is, you just have to hop from event to event."
The roster features 16 boys and 15 girls.
"Typically we have a lot more boys, but we're almost even this year," Morris said. "We've had a huge jump in girls program. We'll have enough to run all the relays, and have multiple girls in the throwing events.
"Most of that is due to a really big group of incoming freshmen. Most of them have tried other sports and decided to give track a try in the spring.
"Last year we took second place at a meet with just five girls, so we're looking forward to see how it goes with some backups. This should help our depth out considerably."
The other benefit from lots of numbers is the camaraderie.
"It's nice they have support," Morris said. "It's things like if you need to get down to bullpen for event, you can go with so and so and get warmed up together.
"We've got our cross country program going pretty well now, so we have a good amount of distance and middle distance runners pushing each other, pushing the pace."
Lots of team members means less of one thing - spare uniforms.
"One of my goals every year is I want to run out of uniforms and the last couple years I've been doing that," Morris said.
One Lady Lion sure to have a uniform is Calvary's lone returning state qualifier. Sam Gunn, now a junior, qualified for the Class 1 300-meter hurdles last season.
"We expect her to keep growing and getting stronger," Morris said. "She came out strong as freshman and just missed getting out of sectionals, then got to go to state last year. She got almost a little overwhelmed (at state) - her getting there was big step. Now we need to get her ready to move on and get to next level."
Others expected to make big impacts for the Lady Lions are freshmen Abby Girard and Emma Homfeldt.
"Abby is probably going to be our top thrower ... and Emma is pretty quick, she's going to be able to contribute in lot of places. She's kind of our utility player out on the track," Morris said. "We've also got a couple jumpers coming out from the volleyball team, we'll see what they can do."
The boys team graduated its lone state qualifier, John Meyer, but there are some other performers expected to make their mark, including junior Robert Ashbaugh.
"Robert was a sectional qualifier last year and he ran at the state meet in cross country," Morris said. "So we look for him to continue getting stronger.
Junior Cal Kolzow, freshman Reece Going, senior Daniel Bollinger and junior Luke Allen are other notables.
"This is Cal's first time out for track and he will contribute a lot," Morris said. "Daniel as a sprinter and jumper has made it to the finals in districts a couple times, and in his senior year has gotten stronger and faster. This is Luke's second year out for track and he was a pleasant surprise last year, we hope to get him to move to next level."