As the Oakville boys cross country team enters the 2022 season, a familiar face will be coaching the Tigers.

Former Oakville head football coach Arlee Conners has taken over the program and is looking forward to a new adventure in his coaching career.

“It should be pretty interesting,” Conners said. “I expect that we should do some good things this year and while football was fun, this is a whole new element for me.”

Seniors Colton Miller and Parker Fritsche return to the Tigers lineup for 2022. Both runners are expected to not only serve as leaders on the team, but also when it comes to scoring points in competitions.

“Colton shows great leadership in practice everyday by putting in the hard work,” Conners said. “I coached Parker in track and field, so it’s going to be interesting to see how he’ll do this season. He’s looking more mature, stronger and focused this year.”

Senior Jason Gold and junior Kyle Le are two more runners from the track and field team that are expected to show significant improvement in 2022.

“Both Jason and Kyle ran track last year and they both showed improvement,” Conners said. “I think that every time they ran from week to week, they were dropping time in every meet.” Sophomore Jonathan Selph is also expected to make significant contributions to the Tiger’s lineup this season.

“As a freshman, Jonathan got better and better as the track season went along,” Conners said. “But I think that cross country is going to be more suited to his abilities.”

The Tigers start the 2022 season Aug. 30 at the Fleet Feet Invitational at the Arnold City Park.