The men’s and women’s track teams competed last weekend in North Carolina, coming away with a decent performance to kick off the outdoor season.
“It was nice to get down to warmer weather,” Hhad men’s track coach Jeff Forino said. “Every time you go to a meet, six or eight guys do really well, and six or eight don’t. There’s a lot of promise for the team to be really solid.”
Freshman Julia Bos placed 8th in her heat of the 5000-meter run. Senior Matthew Raffin placed 19th in the 110 hurdles. Sophomore Matthew Harris took 2nd, pole vaulting 4.6 meters. Senior Maurice Jones placed 11th in the 200-meter dash. Freshman Ty Etchemendy placed 7th in the triple jump with 14.46 meters.
For some competitors, this meet was the first chance to compete again. Junior Matt Perkins competed after sitting out for an entire year due to an injury.
“I had to work the conference meet and stuff and that is just hard, but it gave me a lot of insight,” Perkins said. “I grew through the experience and it taught me to be patient and realize that [competing] is a gift, and I think that is something that a lot of athletes take for granted.”
Besides the 1500, Perkins ran in the 4×4 for training purposes. Many track athletes use these early meets to train, not necessarily worried about winning, so that they are “peaking” for conference and nationals.
“I was actually surprised with my fitness level because I haven’t been doing a lot of miles and to just pop off a 15-minute 5k was good,” Perkins said. “I was happy with it but not satisfied. It means I have things to look forward to.”
Junior Shena Albaugh also ran in the 1500, beating her personal record by 19 seconds.
“At first I thought that I ran really slow,” she said. “I didn’t feel satisfied with it. I was a couple of seconds off, but I still felt like I put my heart and soul into it. I turned out pretty well, but I’m still hungry for that provisional qualifying mark.”
The first outdoor meet meant the chance to do throwing events like javelin that are not done during indoor season. Regardless, sophomore Nathan Nobbs threw a lifetime best in the javelin.
“They have to wait two-thirds of the year to get a chance to compete,” Forino said. “They get seven weeks outdoor. The whole rest of the year they are training for those seven weeks. I was very pleased with those guys.”
The weather is an important factor for competing so the team tries to travel to better conditions, which is why they travelled to North Carolina last weekend and are travelling to Kentucky this weekend.
“I anticipate some things that didn’t go well for people, like the throwers and the technical people, will be able to come back and have better results this weekend,” Forino said.
The teams are ready to move on to next week’s meet with an eye on conference.
“It was our first outdoor meet so it was a rust-buster,” Perkins said.
