DAWSON — The Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd track and field team is entering the 2026 spring outdoor season looking to make strides forward powered with a large young core. The Blackjacks graduated a strong group of seniors last year, and will aim to fill the gaps with the leadership they left behind.

LQPV/Dawson-Boyd will be led by a talented group of underclassmen, holding just seven combined seniors this season between both the boys and girls teams.

“If you look at the girl’s side … Our distance [running] is pretty sound, because we’ve got a few of them that went to state in cross [country], and they’ve got some experience there. That would probably be our strength there … We got some good jumpers also that are seniors that will help us, too,” head coach John Shurb said of this year’s strengths. “On the boys, we’re young in a lot of spots. We graduated [like] 12 seniors last year, and pretty much every one of them scored a lot of points. But, I think in our jumping, we’ve got some very good jumpers. I think probably that 400 [meter race] and the jumpers are probably going to be our strength, and the high and triple jump … With some of the new kids we got, I think our relay teams will get very interesting also.”

The Blackjacks got off to a positive start in their first meet this season on April 14 at the Montevideo Invitational, where both teams finished in fourth place out of the seven competing teams.

“It was fun watching the kids really do some things that we haven’t seen out of them, and where they’re at. Some kids think they’re really, really behind, but they ran really well, and ran some very decent marks,” Shurb said of the season’s start. “That was good, just to see where we’re at. We’re incorporating so many new kids in a bunch of events, so it’s seeing where they’re at, and I thought it went well.”

On the boys side, senior Tanner Kalas placed third in the 400-meter race with a 54.33 time, and will look to be a top runner for the team this year. Shurb referred to him as playing a leadership role for the boy’s team this season.

Shurb mentioned he will be looking to compete at a high level particularly in the relay races on both teams, and an event where he also wants to see growth.

“The relay team [event] is a big one. We struggled to have a real consistent 4×1 or 4×2 on both teams, and now we’re starting to see it,” Shurb said. “We need those relays to kind of fall into place. That’s where we want to look at what we can do.”

At the Montevideo invite, the Blackjacks seemed to get off on the right foot with a second-place finish in the 4×200 relay with Beckett Anderson, Jaxton Hastad, Cale Tufto and Carver Schwegel. Anderson and Tufto are both sophomores, while Hastad is a junior with Schwegel in his freshman campaign.

The team also had top-10 finishes in the 4×100, 4×400 and 4×800 relays.

Hastad will also look to be a top individual for the boys, and took third in both the high jump and triple jump at Montevideo, and sixth in the long jump.

Returning junior Mason Bothun placed fifth in the 300-meter hurdle event at the section championship last season, who will also be looked at as a key returner.

The boys team graduated a couple key pieces from a season prior, including Brayson Boike who went on to place eighth, 10th and 11th at the Class A state tournament in long jump, triple jump and high jump, respectively.

Gavin Karl also graduated, who finished in sixth and ninth for the 1600 and 800-meter dashes in the section championship, as did since-graduated senior duo Carson Gariepy and David Torgerson, who placed in the top-10 at the championship in shot put and pole vault, respectively.

For the girls team, freshman Brynn Gloege had already reached great success as a runner and led the Blackjacks last season, and Shurb said he will be looking at her to do the same again this year.

“Brynn looks good. Hopefully with another year strength-wise, I think she will be that much stronger,” Shurb said of Brynn’s start to the season.

As an eighth grader, Gloege was the lone other Blackjack to get to the state tournament last year alongside Boike. She finished in fourth place in the 800-meter final, as she also did in the preliminaries. She initially took first overall in the event at the section championship.

Notably, Gloege also helped lead the 4×800 relay team in the section championship to a third-place finish alongside Tahlia Hersom, Harper Gronholz and Taylor Wood, all of whom return this year but Wood.

Picking right up where she left off, Gloege opened this season at the Montevideo meet taking first in the 800-meter race, and her sister, junior Chloe Gloege, came in third. Shurp noted both Gloege sisters as key returners for the girls team this season, citing that Chloe is really strong in the mile race.

Shurb noted Makiah Pust, Morgan Anderson and Alexis Olesen as other leaders this season. Pust is also a runner, while Anderson and Olson compete in the jumping events.

Senior Makiah Pust will also be looked at as one of the team’s leaders, Shurb noted. Pust has had a good start to the season with a runner-up finish at Montevideo in the 400-meter. Her, Brynn Gloege, Sadie Rosendahl and Julissa Ramos also took second in the 4×400, showcasing a strong start in the girls team’s running events to open the year.

“[I’m looking forward to] how much we can grow and how much we can develop and get better as it goes on,” Shurb said. “We only have a few seniors, but we got some really young kids … Our few older ones can give the younger ones some learning experience, and teach them a little bit to where it goes to the next level.”