HEBER SPRINGS — Heber Springs has a rich history in track and field, but Dale Cresswell’s Panthers have a chance to put a special notation in the history books this year.
The Panthers won the Class 4A state cross-country championship last fall and the Class 1A-4A indoor meet in February.
An outdoor championship in May would give the Panthers a triple crown — a sweep of all three state titles in the same school year.
“It’d be nice,” said coach Dale Cresswell, a 1985 Heber Springs High School graduate and a former Panther pole vaulter. “But we’re going to have to be lucky.”
Granted, but the Panthers seem to have done what they needed to do to make their own luck.
They placed six runners in the top 11 at the state cross-country meet: Austin Schmidt, a freshman, fourth; Michael Dorsey, fifth; Jake Sanders, sixth; Tyler Shearer, seventh; Andrew Powell, ninth; and Jonathan Pennington, 11th.
And they dominated the state indoor meet, scoring 131 points to runner-up De Queen’s 56.
“I’ve always had good distance runners,” said Cresswell, who has coached track at Heber since 1992 and who picked up cross country in 2005 after he made the switch from football. “Since then, we’ve won [state cross country] three years and finished runner-up twice.”
In fact, the Panthers were cross-country champs in 2004 to go along with ’06, ’08 and ’10.
But a third-place finish in ’09 may have been one factor that led to the team’s current success.
“My runners came up to me that day and said, ‘We will not lose next year, Coach,’” Cresswell remembered. “Our distance runners enjoy it. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t come out. They are good ones who work on their own.”
The Heber Springs track tradition goes back even further. The Panthers won outdoor titles in 1991, ’97 and ’98 and finished second in 2010. Indoors, they won in ’97 and 2001 and finished runner-up in ’98, 2000 and 2010.
But the domination of 2011 indoors was unprecedented.
The Panthers won four events: Evan Higgs went 6 feet in the high jump; the 4x800 relay team blazed to a 23-second win; Sanders ran 4:41.68 in the 1,600; and Dorsey took the 800 in 2:08.56.
But they added 16 top-five finishes in the various events, including sophomore Ethan Bly’s second in the 200 and thirds in the long jump and 60. Schmidt, Clint Ligon and Jordan Peterson took second, third and fifth, respectively, in the 400.
“I was expecting to go up there and compete,” Cresswell said. “I’ve just got good kids, and they’ve got a mindset that we’re going to do something, and they’re going to do it. I’m more or less a motivator. I don’t have to coach those kids, especially for distance. They do a lot on their own.
“They love to run and they love to compete. I’ve had some who’ve worked hard since ninth grade. My high jumper (Higgs) won the high jump. Things like that just happened.”
Dorsey, a senior, said he didn’t think the Panthers would ever win indoors.
“Halfway through [the meet],” Dorsey said, “I kept asking Coach what the score was, and we didn’t want to say we had it won, but we knew pretty much if we kept going and gave relentless effort, we’d be OK. Everybody was pretty much on and really wanted to win.
“We’ve been talking about a triple crown forever. It probably would be the best feeling in the world to win.”
Senior Andrew Hill won the state outdoor pole vault title last spring, clearing 14 feet. He took second indoors in February at 13-10, behind only Andrew Irwin of Mount Ida, one of the nation’s top vaulters, who went 17-4.50.
“The kid that beat me was the best in the nation, so that’s OK,” said Hill, whose goal is to repeat as outdoor champion. “I hope to jump higher. My coach said I’m already at the starting point where I was at the end of last year, so I definitely have the potential to jump higher.”
Hill’s personal best last spring was 14-2.
Besides Hill and Dorsey, the defending 800 outdoor champion, Panther seniors include Higgs, Pennington, Shearer, Mason Williams and Emitt West.
Sanders, a junior, has been an exceptional distance runner since seventh grade, Cresswell said.
Sanders said he figured the Panthers would win the cross-country crown last fall, but he wasn’t sure how track season would go once the nondistance events came into play.
“But it was exciting,” he said. “I can’t wait until later on in the outdoor season to see how everyone improves. When people realized we have a chance to win the triple crown, which doesn’t happen too often, they want to work a lot harder.”
Sophomores Bly and Ligon are sprinters and hurdlers who’ve already found success at the varsity level.
So there’s a good mix of upperclassmen and underclassmen, as well as balance among the events — a recipe for success.
“In the past, our strength has always been distance and pole vault,” Cresswell said, “but the truth is, in the state meet, we got 55 points out of the distance events, 50 out of the sprints and the rest from field events. To me, it was kind of amazing that we did it that way.”
So what will it take to secure that elusive triple crown?
“I just have to have my kids do the best they can in each event so that we can get people in the state meet,” Cresswell said. “You have to get first or second in the conference if you don’t qualify [by performance[ before, and we have won our conference meet 18 out of 19 years, and since 1990, 20 of 21 years.”
The usual suspects from the 4A-7 should provide the Panthers their biggest competition at state: Nashville, De Queen and Ashdown. And Shiloh Christian looms as well.
But Cresswell and the Panthers are optimistic.
“Despite me, they will be a good track team,” he said. “They don’t have to listen to me.”