Courtesy Photo Alpena girls track coach Joy Bullis has plenty of talent to work with this season, but says the challenge for her will be putting individual athletes in the right events to put them in position to succeed.

Looking at this year’s roster, there’s no doubt the Alpena High girls track team has talent.

The challenge for coach Joy Bullis is figuring out how best to distribute that talent to make the Wildcats competitive.

“I feel like we have a solid one or two in every event,” Bullis said. “So I feel like we’re still covered, we’ll just have to see where everyone else fits in.”

With more than 50 girls on the team and 17 events to fill, Bullis will have no shortage of options for meets. But in the early part of the season, Bullis will be counting on her upperclassman to lead the way as a group of almost two dozen freshmen attempt to find their roles on the roster.

In the field events, the Wildcats return several key athletes. Dakota Prevo, Demi Oliver and Faith Weide will be among those leading Alpena in the throwing events. Weide was fifth at regionals last season in the shot put and Prevo finished sixth and fifth in the shot put and discus respectively.

In the high jump, Katie Mack returns and was also one of Alpena’s top long jumpers last season. She finished second in the Big North Championships last season and was fifth at regionals. Bullis is hopeful Mack can be a state qualifier and she and Alpena’s other jumpers will be aided by former coach Collin Riffert, who is coaching jumps this season.

“It’s very huge to have him back; (he’s a) veteran coach who knows what he’s doing,” Bullis said.

Maddie Voltz will be in the mix in the high jump and Olivia Custer could be in the mix in the long jump.

In the pole vault, Alpena will be lead by Katlyn Trelfa and Bullis said several freshmen are in the mix to join her.

In the track events, Alpena will look to its distance runners and hurdlers as main point scorers. In the hurdles, Taylor Foster and Savannah Thomson both return after finishing in top five at the conference championships. Conference Championships in both hurdle events.

Emma Jore returns as one of Alpena’s top sprinters and will likely be joined by Voltz, Foster and Custer among others. In the middle distance, Mack will be Alpena’s go-to runner in the 400 dash and could also run the 800 along with Jore. Destiney Wirgau could be in the mix in several of the running events as well, but she’ll start the season off recovering from injury.

Maddy Boyd will anchor Alpena’s distance events and could be another state qualifier after a solid freshman season. Boyd finished third in the 1,600 run at regionals and finished in the top 10 in both distance runs at the conference championships. Boyd will be joined by several of her cross country teammates to help lock down those events.

“We’ve still got a lot of talent within that sophomore group, but that freshmen class has girls returning from cross country,” Bullis said. Five of my seven varsity (runners) in cross country were freshmen and they’re out here. That’s big.”

With a solid mix of talent and youth, the Wildcats hope to be among the top finishers in the conference, competing against an always-talented mix of teams.

“The conference last year really stepped up a notch, Gaylord and Cadillac had some outstanding sprinters. Central is always solid for distance events. West is always very well rounded,” Bullis said. “We love competing that the level we compete at.”

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.