Superior Central’s Erin Walters, left, hands off the baton to Danika Walters during the girls 800 meter relay Monday afternoon, Apr. 17, 2017 at the Division III Dome Invitational track meet. (Journal photo by Rachel Oakley)

MARQUETTE — The Superior Central Cougars track and field team began a new era under head coach Ryan Kleven Monday afternoon at the Division III Dome Invitational in Marquette.

Kleven, who’s beginning his first season with the Cougars, said the indoor competition was a good way to start their year.

“It’s a good evaluation point to see where we are at,” he said. “It’s a quick start to our season, so we get to see what we need to work on.

“There’s always things to improve on and see what our strengths are, and it’s a great event to see the other competition in the U.P. and where we rank against them.”

Kleven said both the boys and girls teams will continue to figure out who will be competing in each event every week, but he knows Superior Central has a lot of potential with the players they have.

“We have a really good relay team,” Kleven said. “We’re getting a lot better with blocks. We’re going to do a lot of work with our short distance running and get it improved.

“Once we get more time outside with some good weather, it’s going to open our practice and competition up and we’ll get even better.”

Superior Central’s boys will only be competing with four athletes, with Noah Groulx, Austin Swetich, Ramsey Luft and Kyle Heminger filling the roster.

Groulx, who plans to compete in at least the shot put, said the thinner roster will bring certain challenges.

“We have a very small team,” Groulx said. “For our size, we’re pretty solid and have a lot of people on both the boys and girls who can accomplish a lot.

“But with only having four boys, we can only go so far, but we can’t think like that.”

Heminger, who Kleven said is the leader of his side of the team, said both the boys and girls will continue to improve as the season goes on.

“I feel confident in both of our teams,” Heminger said. “Our boys team is growing and working on finding ourselves, and our girls team is the best team I’ve seen in awhile.”

“For the boys,we’re working on endurance to help get our time down.”

Kleven said the leadership on the girls side has come from Erin Walters, who’s been leading by example early in their season.

“Erin has been around track for a while and knows what it takes to do well,” Kleven said. “She’s been a vocal leader to a lot of younger kids we have, and she’s going to play a big role in this team continuing to come together.”

Erin’s younger sister Danika Walters is one of the freshmen competing for the Cougars, as well as Betty Jo Swajanen, Maddy Lancore, Jessica Walters and Dana Carpenter.

Carpenter said her team plans to build off their performances they recorded Monday. No results were made available.

“It is a good experience to compete in the Dome against some good competition, but when it’s your first meet, teams probably don’t do as well as they will later in the season,” she said. “We know we can get better everyday, and that’s what matters.

“It’s all going to come in practice. We’ll be a very good team by the end of the season.”

And as the team continues to prep for their remaining schedule, Kleven echoed Carpenter’s words of improving off every performance.

“We want to get better each day,” Kleven said.

“Something we’ve talked about is putting the work in everyday and finding the little details that will get us those extra seconds that will be huge in the end.”

Ray Bressette can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 251. His email address is rbressette@miningjournal.net.