Elin Turner makes most of shot at 100-meter hurdles

  • Elin Turner is a four-sport athlete at OCHS, running and track, and playing softball and basketball. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)
    Elin Turner is a four-sport athlete at OCHS, running and track, and playing softball and basketball. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)
  • Despite losing some big points scorers this season, head coach Tim Stoudenmire is hopeful about his team's chances at the 2024 meet. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)
    Despite losing some big points scorers this season, head coach Tim Stoudenmire is hopeful about his team's chances at the 2024 meet. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)
  • The OCHS girls track team won consecutive state championships in 2021 and '22. The Patriots finished second in 2023. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)
    The OCHS girls track team won consecutive state championships in 2021 and '22. The Patriots finished second in 2023. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)

Elin Turner is determined to help Oglethorpe County’s girls track team return to its winning ways at state.

 

The Lady Patriots finished second at the Class A Division I state meet last season after winning consecutive state titles the two previous years.

 

“We kind of expected to win last year, so I got in the mindset of ‘Oh, I’m gonna get a ring,’ ” Turner said. “That didn’t happen, so that really humbled me.”

 

Turner qualified for this year’s meet, which will be held this weekend at Barron Stadium in Rome, in the 100-meter hurdles. She’s approaching this year’s meet with a different attitude.

 

“I’m really nervous, to be honest. I’ve been stressing about it the past week,” Turner said. “But I’m just working as hard as I can at practice, and I’m just trying to have, you know, a calm, positive mindset and just trying to not be as negative.”

 

Turner is one of eight OCHS athletes to qualify for the state meet, a group that includes Denim Goddard, and Kenzie and Sydnie Henderson. 

 

“Some people are excited just to get to the state meet,” coach Tim Stoudenmire said. “But we have a different standard for ourselves in the fact that we expect to be in the conversation to win the state meet every year.”

 

Oglethorpe County isn’t as deep as past versions, so the Lady Patriots are going to have to receive contributions from everybody.

 

“We are definitely a different team,” Stoudenmire said. “I would be cautious to say a weaker team or a worse team. We’re just really focusing on squeezing out every second or inch that we can get out of our girls to make up some of the points that we are missing.”

 

Stoudenmire has told his team that finishing in sixth, seventh or eighth place will go further than in the past. 

 

“We’re just trying to do a lot with a little this year and make up for some of the points that we’ve lost by the natural process of high school sports,” he said.

 

Part of that process, though, is the emergence of talented underclassmen athletes like Turner, a sophomore.

 

Turner's favorite event to compete in is the 100m hurdles. This year, Stoudenmire says that event has some of the toughest competition he has ever seen. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)
Turner's favorite event to compete in is the 100m hurdles. This year, Stoudenmire says that event has some of the toughest competition he has ever seen. (Torin Smith/The Oglethorpe Echo)

 

Turner competed in the 4x800-meter relay and the 800-meter run, in addition to the 100 hurdles. Stoudenmire said she might have her work cut out for her in her favorite event, the 100 hurdles.

 

“(The 100 meter hurdles) is the absolute deepest I’ve ever seen it, in all of the years that I have coached,” Stoudenmire said. “I’ve never seen so many girls running under 17 seconds, which is blazing fast, and she is working hard to stay under that 17-second mark.”

 

Stoudenmire praised Turner’s work ethic and her dedication to perfection, a mindset that could help the Patriots squeeze out extra points at the state meet.

 

“She has given us what she has, which is every bit, every day,” he said. “She’s always there, she never misses. She’s the type of kid that you build your program on.”