“I thought we were going to have a pretty good group, with all the girls coming back from the previous year’s team,” he recalled. “I thought we had a good shot to be a top-five, top-three team.”
The Lakers, however, exceeded even those expectations.
“As the season progressed, you could see it,” he said. “They just kept improving.”
After winning a Division 4 regional crown, the Bear Lake girls went on to be the runners-up at the state meet. And with six of those seven harriers returning this season, consider the sky as the limit.
“Expectations are pretty high for the girls right now,” Shrum said. “We obviously had a great season last year, and they’ve all put a lot of effort in over the summer to get ready for this season. So, I know they’re all excited and chomping at the bit to get to the races.”
Despite the lone departure of 2013 graduate Taylor Anderson, Bear Lake brings back all five scorers in last year’s final race, including All-State finishers (top 30) Keena Gilbert and Faith Moerdyk. Senior Kelly Babcock and juniors McKaya Groenwald, Alysha Peterson, Meredith Hengy and Alyson Fink round out the experienced core while Marie Deitmaring and Ana Hernandez join as newcomers.
“It’s an experienced team,” Shrum said. “This year the goal is to take what they did last year and build upon it.”
