Members of the Falkville High School track and field team are, from left, (back) Nick Widner, Clay Kyle, Bryan White, Justino Aguero, Tylor Roy, Ryan Sullivan, George McCabe, (middle) Noah King, Hayden Little, Jason Morgan, Dylan Young, Isaac Russell, Drake Hamilton, Jose Meza, James Kelly Littrell, Brian Bradford, (front) Griffin Ledingham, Daiton Ortiz, Tressie Staggs, Hailey Wilson and Tori Tillman. Not pictured are Blake Bradford, Bram Miller, Jacob Walling, Autumn Eddy, Bailey Lockhart and Kira Brown.

Falkville’s High School’s boys track team is the two-time defending overall 1A state champions, bringing Falkville to six total team state championships.

They will return three boys of the four members of the state record holding championship 4×800 meter team, but they graduated all four boys of their state championship 4×400 meter team.

Falkville’s track program has enough scoring athletes that the losses they saw from graduation are not their biggest concern. Instead, they are more worried about their reclassification to 2A.

“Our boys are used to dominating their area, so we are going to see how this year goes,” said coach Jace Wilemon. “We know there is a big competition difference between 1A and 2A and it’s going to be a lot tougher. We are always strong in our throwing and our relays, so we hope our success there will continue.”

Falkville considers Cold Springs one of their fiercest competitors.

“We have a respectful and friendly rivalry with Cold Springs,” coach Keith Wilemon said. “They are very good, and we know we will have to compete against them in 2A this year. Their coach is a friend of mine, and he always has a good team that we will have to look out for.”

Jace said Falkville is looking to a few returners to keep their points up.

“Bram Miller, Autumn Eddy and Ryan Sullivan are definitely big returners for us,” Jace said. “We will really be counting on some of our other returning girls like Patricia Kilgore, Katie Evans and Kari Watts since we have a lot less girls than boys.”

Eddy placed second at state in the girls’ javelin last year and placed in high jump, long jump and triple jump. Sullivan won the state championship in the boys’ 300 meter hurdles last year and scored in the 200 meter dash and boys pole vault. Miller gained national attention when he won the state championship in boys’ high jump and corrected the officials when they mistakenly gave him the state record.

Keith said he feels like they have a chance at success all around.

“We have a potential to be good in most everything,” Keith said. “The biggest thing we are worried about is our depth and numbers in case someone was to get injured. I think we really have a chance at pole vault since we have two with experience who scored at state. We also have a lot of good jumpers.”

Keith said their team goals will build on each other throughout the season.

“We want to get better every day, so we will be ready for every challenge,” Keith said. “We want to become the county champs, the sectional champs and eventually the state champs, but it all starts with improvements at every practice.”

Falkville will host three outdoor track meets this season at South Park. The state championship will be in Cullman this year.

Falkville track is coached by Keith and Karen Wilemon and their son Jace Wilemon.