With the addition of a promising freshman class, the track team is ready to sprint into the outdoor season and improve upon their success from last year.
The men’s team placed fourth overall in the GLIAC last year and the women’s team finished eighth.
“Last year was our best to date in my time here, sending the most men to nationals in recent history. In the conference we have been steadily improving as well, placing higher individually and as a team every year for the past four years,” said senior Maurice Jones, who finished third in the 400m hurdles at outdoor nationals last year.
Junior Kristina Galat, who placed second in the 5K at this year’s indoor track national championships, expressed the same thoughts about the women’s efforts.
“The team did well in outdoors last year, sending more people to nationals than we have in years past,” Galat said.
The women’s track and field team believes they are poised to accomplish great things this season.
“I think we will be better than last year,” said junior Emily Oren, the 5K indoor track champion. “Everybody, I think, has a new sense of confidence in the team after what we were able to accomplish at the indoor national meet which will help us all perform well outdoors.”
The women’s team finished second overall at the indoor national meet on March 13, the best finish in school history.
According to Galat this success and renewed confidence is attributed to many factors.
“The depth of talent on our team has increased exponentially: Partly because of a new coaching staff, partly because of an amazing group of freshman in almost every event group, and partly because everyone has gotten a lot more serious this year.”
The men’s team feels a similar confidence about the upcoming outdoor season.
“The men will be, without question, better than the year before,” Jones said. “We have a freshman class that is reminiscent of our own. I would say it even surpasses us in raw talent and bringing a similar tenacity and work ethic.”
These widespread good feelings and belief in the freshmen class has inspired lofty goals for the team. Although admittedly not one to set broad goals, Jones gave a few words about what the team hopes to accomplish.
“For us it is more about improving on ourselves because if we do then the team will improve as a result, thus placing us higher in the conference and eventually, we hope, at nationals. If I were to put it into words I would say we would look to improve our standing in the conference, which is easier said than done, and take as many people to nationals as we can,” Jones said.
Jones said he personally hopes to earn a national title this year.
“We would like to place better at the conference meet and for the national meet it would be great to keep up what we just did at indoors and be a podium team,” Oren said of the women’s goals.
Junior Corinne Zehner summed up the sentiments of the track and field team: “I think everyone is really excited for the outdoor season and we are going to continue to surprise the other schools,” she said.
The track and field team’s first meet is March 27th and 28th in Raleigh, North Carolina.
