The boys track team has been making the transition from its indoor season to the outdoor season, and had its first outdoor meet on April 9.
The team has been working hard to prepare for their outdoor season and the new events that come with it, such as discus, 100 meter race, 110 meter hurdles, 300 meter hurdles,4×100 meter relay, and 4×200 meter relay.
During their first outdoor meet on Sat. April 9 at Glenbard South High School they came in overall at 4th with 90.5 points out of the 6 teams that were at the meet.
The team took some places in many different events. Senior John Taci came in first in the 300 meter hurdles and second for the 110 meter hurdles, Patrick Campbell came in first for triple jump and third for the 300 meter hurdles, and the 4×400 relay team came in first. During the 3200 meter race Senior Alex Martinez came in fifth. Senior Angel Garcia came in fifth in discus and seventh in shot put.
The struggle of starting the outdoor season has been the cold and rainy weather which can affect practices and meets.
“The transition has been fun because it opened more events for others and myself to do like disc and hurdles, ” said senior Otoniel Otascoaga. “The challenging part is the weather which plays a big role on times for running and throws as well for jumps but we just have to prepare for the worst.”
They have been working hard to accomplish their goals both personally and collectively, and are trying to make the most out of all their practices.
“My personal goals track and field are to make it all-conference for shot put and just breaking some personal best records for the 200-meter run and the 100-meter run and see where hurdles can take me, and make the most out of every practice with such a great team with the coaches and my teammates,” said Otascoaga.
With conference less than a month away many of the team members have been working towards the goal of making it to conference.
“I’m hopeful that our team can shock some people and end up medaling at our outdoor conference meet this year,” said senior Campbell. “We have a lot of guys that are putting their heart and souls on the track every day that deserve to see their hard work pay off. There’s some athletes that are running events they’ve never tried just so we can fill entries and actually look like they’re going to be awesome additions so it’ll be fun to see what the is looking like and how we shape up to other schools come conference.”
The team experienced an overall larger turnout of athletes this year who have been taking on bigger roles and filling in spots, while still working on personal goals.
“The week to week goals of us having and establishing personal records and the amount of participation this year has been great, especially with the amount of talent that we lost last year, it’s great to see these guys that have really stepped up,” said head coach James Ziebka.
