Over the past two years, Brett Otterbacher’s track career hasn’t followed the script he’d written.

And the coronavirus pandemic is only part of the story for the Valparaiso senior and Purdue commit.

“I’ve just accepted that I have to keep moving forward in everything I do,” he said.

For now, that means getting everything he can out of his final high school season. Otterbacher made his spring debut at the Valparaiso Relays on Friday night.

Otterbacher burst onto the scene as a freshman, placing fourth in the state in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.91 seconds. The following season, Otterbacher moved up to third, finishing in 48.16. He also helped Valparaiso’s 1,600 relay team take fifth at 3:19.61.

When Otterbacher’s junior season was canceled last spring, more opportunities for individual success weren’t all he missed.

“I’m a team person, and our team looked really strong last year,” he said. “So losing the last season really hurt.”

In July, however, Otterbacher found competition when he ran at the CMB Outdoor Classic in Indianapolis and won the 400 with a personal-best time of 47.48. He’d been working with Chicago-based trainer Brian Dzingai — a former Olympic sprinter — although in-person training sessions were rare due to the pandemic.

After playing football in the fall, Otterbacher returned to track training in the winter, and a new obstacle emerged: injuries.

First, he pulled a back muscle in January. Then, just as he was preparing for his first meet of the season in early March, he strained his left hamstring. A few weeks later, he strained his right hamstring, something he attributed to overcompensating for the injured left leg.

That’s why, on Friday night, Otterbacher ran his first official race of the season. He placed second in the 800 in 2:01.43.

“It was nice to get back out on the track,” Otterbacher said. “To run in the low 2s off of nothing felt pretty good.”

Conference meets arrive this week, and the postseason starts next week. Otterbacher expressed doubt about his ability to be 100% for any of those events.

“Right now, I just want to stay healthy,” he said. “That’s my No. 1 goal.”

But Otterbacher’s competitive spirit also wants one more shot at the 400 that became his signature event.

“I don’t know how fast it’ll be,” he said. “But I’d like to get in one last 400 during high school.”

Change of plans: Lake Central sophomore Kameron Gethers expected to play baseball this spring. When he was cut from the team, however, he ended up in track, and he has emerged as one of the area’s top sprinters in short time.

With the Valparaiso Relays split into two divisions — one for freshmen and sophomores and the other for juniors and seniors — Gethers competed against underclassmen only. But he won the 100 in 11.31 and the 200 in 22.93. Those times were not far from Merrillville senior Devon Davis’ first-place times of 11.25 in the 100 and 22.73 in the 200 in the older division.

Track remains a fairly new sport for Gethers, who is working to perfect his starts out of the blocks, which could lower his times further.

“That’s been a challenging thing to get over,” he said.

Despite his success this spring, Gethers said he’s still leaning toward giving baseball another shot in 2022.

“I’m still debating on that,” he said.

Jump start: Merrillville junior Silas Mathis has been doing the high jump for just a few months, but he was the center of attention Friday night during his back-and-forth with Penn senior Vinny Nierzwicki.

Both peaked at a height of 6 feet, 4 inches, as a crowd of runners surrounded the high jump pit to watch the duel. Mathis finished in second place on a tiebreaker but still was wearing a wide smile after breaking his old personal record of 6-2.

“It just felt good knowing my teammates had my back and were supporting me through everything,” he said.

Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.