Boys Track Looks to Continue Success

After a breakthrough season last year, qualifying five relays and four individual events to the State Meet and scoring and surpassing all-time marks in four of those events, the boys track and field team looks to continue upon its success.

“This year we believe we can improve upon last year’s performances. We have six athletes back who have scored points at the state meet, as opposed to only having three return last year,” Head Coach Mike Moore said.

As far as defining goals, Zach Jones ’18, who played a crucial role in four out of five relays at state last season, puts it quite simply.

“We want to get as many people to state as possible, and to win state,” Jones said.

Jones acknowledges that without some key seniors, there will be some obstacles to overcome this season in that aspect.

“[I think our team’s biggest challenge will] probably be finding sprinters and getting people into the right races. This year we don’t have as many guys to work with [as in years past],” Jones said.

Although some instrumental pieces of the team’s previous success have graduated, the team hopes to utilize its young talent alongside veteran experience.

“I am most excited for the young guys coming up and also our varsity talent who will come out with a great offseason and be competing at a high level,” Captain Jim McMillan ‘17 said. “As far as young talent goes, Daniel Brown, who is a sophomore, looks very impressive. He’s trained since November and has been looking really good. I look forward to seeing him thrive.”

“We should be stronger in our 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 4×400 and 4×800 events this year [due to experience],” Coach Moore said. “We also believe our sprint, hurdle and field events, while young, will generate points during the invitational and championship phases of the season.”

In order to accomplish their goals, athletes have put in many miles over the off-seasons and right off the bat have done challenging workouts.

“I have been training since December. I have been doing some mileage, and the start of the season we’ve been training hard,” McMillan said. “Hopefully that’s been good enough to get me in shape for these early meets, and also to prepare me for the later meets.”

Through those challenging workouts McMillan has noticed a positive and goal-oriented attitude among his teammates.

“Everyone’s focused on themselves, and how good we can be. It’s not a social thing, which sounds bad but it’s this thing where we’re motivated to always get better,” McMillan said.

Due to track’s individual focus, as McMillan mentioned, quantitative personal goals are a central part of the sport. Both McMillan and Jones have these goals.

“I’m looking forward to wins at Drake and State in the open 400, the 4×400 [meter relay], the high hurdles, and maybe shuttle [hurdle relay],” Jones said. “ I’m looking to build onto my 400 time and drop that to 48 [seconds] flat, or even faster, and probably make a run for the high hurdles.”

“My personal goal is to break 1:55 again and also to make it in the top three in the state at Drake and State.” McMillan said.

The team understands what it needs to do in order to meet expectations.

“I think [our biggest challenge] will be [maintaining] our focus on making ourselves better, and racing. Our training is there, we have our base, we have everything else,” McMillan said.  “It’s just those guys going out there and racing and being serious about this, and really wanting to be great.”