The Escambia Academy Cougars track and field team will begin practice on Monday seeking to win add another state championship trophy in the sport.

The Cougars have won the previous four championships for Class 2A and will seek their fifth straight this spring.

Cougars head coach Heath Gibson said his team has a good shot at repeating again.

“We’ve got Jaylen Henry back along with a lot of our team, so we are in good shape,” he said. “I feel like this year, we’ll rely more on our speed than we have had in years past. In previous years, our focus was on our long distance running, but now our speed seems to be our larger asset.

One thing that will hurt the Cougars is the loss of one track athlete who was injured last fall.

Braxton Chastang will sit out this season, while he rehabs a leg that he broke in incident unrelated to athletics.

Gibson said not having his hurdler will be an issue.

“It’ll hurt us not having Braxton,” he said. “He was a sure thing to win the 300m hurdles and the 110m hurdles, which he finished second in last year to his cousin from Fort Dale. His cousin has graduated, so it looked like it would be Braxton’s year.”

For more on this story see Saturday’s edition of The Atmore Advance.