Track season is winding down, as the school year comes to a close. So far it has been pretty successful and a lot of young (freshman and
sophomore) students have joined the team.

This year there are a handful of members participating, including Nia Hunter, Cristine Macancela, Nicole Smutek, Andrew Nash, Snehel Kunjumon, and many more. The biggest challenge, however, is that the team is full of young members. This means that there needs to be time spent explaining the events and finding out which events work best for each member. Events may even change in the middle of the season. For example, some sprinters were moved to distance and there has been evident improvement. Another difficulty was that many joined at once. Since there were over 80 students that joined, different time slots had to be made so that there could be the small group attention needed for each member.

The biggest strength was noted to be the strong positive leadership from the seniors that helped the new members. Since the team is much larger than the previous year, that does come with drawbacks, but the many returning members for next year will help the track team do better than years before. The team size also allows for members to push themselves since there is more competition for varsity spots.

Next year, there will be higher standards in terms of qualifying pre-meet times, as well as excuses for not being able to come to practice. A goal that the team has is that they want to get better than last year and set new records. Many players join track to get better physically and stay fit for other sports they participate in. Track is not the easiest sport because it pushes you physically and mentally, but it is rewarding. In the words of Nicole Smutek, “What you put in is what you get out,” this is what sums up track for anyone wishing or thinking of joining.