BUTTE — For senior Bryan Holland, whose final high school football and basketball seasons were hampered by cancellations and postponements, this is the final hurrah before he gets set to join Carroll College's football team this fall.
"It just feels nice to be a part of something one last time, able to be with my buddies out here practicing," said Holland.
The Butte Central track and field team kicks off its season this weekend at the Gene Hughes Invite in Corvallis, and Central's 22-member team seemed happy to just be practicing on a chilly afternoon earlier this week after all spring sports were shelved last year.
The Maroons return just one placer from the 2019 Class A state meet, where then-freshman Rileigh McGree took sixth place in the girls 300-meter hurdles while her sister, Lindsay McGree, now a sophomore with Montana State, won the girls long jump.
With the season just getting under way after a two-year hiatus, it remains to be seen who on Central's roster will be contenders. Their coach is just pleased that they have an opportunity to compete.
"It's great, I'm thrilled for these kids," said Central coach Dan McGree who has been coaching the Maroons in some capacity for 30 years and took over for Zach Stajcar after the 2019 season. "They're resilient, obviously. They're hard workers and they're doing everything right. They're trying to be safe and be good citizens and just have a chance to compete and have a spring together and get kind of back to normal."
For Holland, he's just happy to be on the track one final time before he concludes this chapter.
"Just having that friendship one last time before I go off to college, it feels really good," Holland said.
