A wise man once said, you can’t win a state championship in the summer, but you can lose one. Off-season workouts and planning is often the difference between contenders and those just trying to survive when the games start to count. Here’s a look at the fall sports teams who open up their 2026 campaigns next month and how they’ve been working to be ready for that first contest.
Editor’s Note: Football information will be available in next week’s edition.
Cross-Country
You’ve probably seen the local distance posse in the community wearing out their shoes and gobbling up carbohydrates. Seeing their mileage schedule tells you why. Coach Ty Draney spoke to this year’s summer goals.
“We had a great summer, the kids have been logging a lot miles,” he said. “We had a camp with about 25 kids and some kids from Firth came over and lots of running and swimming at High-C. It was a great time. It was a big hit with the kids.”
The schedule has been all over the area as well.
“We’ve been meeting Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays in various parts of the valley and do some funning (fun running),” Draney continued. “We’ve been adding a Star Summit Club on Mondays. Tuesday there’s a group that meets in Thayne and then Wednesday it rotates. Everybody is a little different. There’s an ideal way to run but also one to run for your body type. We focus more on trying to do more injury prevention and plyometrics and mostly try and bullet-proof them for the rigors of the season ahead.”
Volleyball
Camp has been a part of the area volleyballers as well as competition.
“We had a skills camp in June and three days with the Utah Valley University coach,” replied coach Kalin Schwab. “That went really well. We’ve been in the weight room every Tuesday and Thursday and have been doing open gym when we can with the floor refinishing. We had 32 girls go to the UVU camp in one of Orem’s hottest weeks. Did you know our buses don’t have air conditioning. That’s a fun fact. It was good team bonding and being together.”
Schwab hopes the experience pays dividends when the Lady Braves open up against Wyoming’s best in about a month.
“We saw teams we had never seen before and may never see again, some high power teams,” he said. “It was fun to see how we stack up and compete. Now we are just waiting to get our last few open gym sessions and get ready for that first weekend in Cheyenne.”
Golf
No high school sport starts earlier than golf who sees their actual season and not just practice start in just three weeks. Coach Kelly Fullmer has the players busy.
“On July 6-7 we took 14 golfers to Riverton to play the course,” he answered. “We played 18 holes and stayed the night then played 18 holes the next morning. We went to give the team more familiarity with the course we will have to qualify for state on this September. Earlier in the summer, juniors Braxton Johnson and Deegan Hill and senior Daltyn DeCora went and played the WY State Junior Championship there, so our team is getting familiar with this good but difficult course. Four of the 14 were girls. Our main goal every year is to qualify for state. Out of the 16 teams in the state, only 8 will get to play in the championship.”
The SVHS golfers were in Evanston this week.
“We are in Evanston [this week], down and back, to play 18 holes. That is the state course this year and again, the more familiar our golfers are with the course, the better we hope they will play,” Fullmer added.
In addition to these outings, the local courses have been busy as well with junior clinics held at Valli Vu Golf Course in Afton every Tuesday morning.
“We alternate weeks between younger juniors and older groups,” Fullmer continued. “We are doing this in cooperation with the Town of Afton and the golf professional at the course Dusty Withey. We have old juniors who are preparing to try out for the team in August and younger juniors we hope will help the team in the years to come.”
Fullmer pointed out questions about tryouts and the upcoming schedule can be found on the golf page of the SVHS website.
