The Hillsboro track team’s season opener at Royall was rained out last Thursday night and has been rescheduled for May 1.

Instead the Tigers opened the season Tuesday night at the North Crawford Invitational.

Hillsboro will return to action Thursday at the Royall Invitational. The Tigers will also travel to the Kickapoo Lee Griffin Invitational on Monday.

Coach Chad Schmidt expects his girls’ team to be competitive this year. The Lady Tigers return 10 key letterwinners from last year’s team, including sectional qualifiers Michaela Bach, Shauna Parish, Breanna Beaver, Morgan Huntley, April Thornsen, Adrianna Reese and Kailey Preuss.

“We have more leadership on the girls’ team than the boys,” said Schmidt. “We have some experience coming back, but we still have a lot of young athletes, so it makes this year a learning situation.

“We just want to keep working hard, get better every day and be our best at the end of the season.”

The Hillsboro boys’ team will undergoing a bit of a rebuilding process after losing a talented 10-person senior class, that included seven sectional qualifiers from last year and former state qualifiers Brandon Stanek (long jump, triple jump, high jump, 2014), Matt Bartels (100, 200 and long jump in 2013, 4x100 relay in 2012) and Max Sebranek (110 hurdles and 300 hurdles in both 2012 and 2013).

“The guys have been very hard workers so far. We are excited to get the season started,” added Schmidt.

UPDATE: The print version of this story, which appears on Page 7 of this week's Hillsboro Sentry Enterprise, stated the Royall track meet would not be made up. The Hillsboro School District sent revised information regarding that event after the print edition went to press.