Nicholas Malone (’16) powers down the straightaway during the varsity boys 200m sprint. Photo courtesy of Noah Carr.By Heather Carr, Staff Writer
As the season came to a close during the Sunset League Prelims at Huntington Beach High School last Friday, the track team focused all their facilities built off weeks of practice to compete against some of the toughest teams in the county, pushing them to move onto Finals. The Barons accomplished the task with PR’s from all levels and by qualifying in nearly every event.
On the distance side, boys varsity scored 3 athletes in the 800m race, where William Hua (’16) led the team with a fourth place finish in a time of 2:01.68 and again in the 1600m, scoring sixth in 4:35.26.
Although the girls varsity team did not perform due to a schedule change, the JV and frosh-soph teams worked especially hard to finish the final few races of their season on a positive note.
“….I think the meet today is going pretty well, I mean it’s our last meet so I honestly feel like everyone is just giving all they got,” said Izzy Camberos (’18), who competed in the JV 1600m and 3200m.”And that makes me proud ….I feel like everyone’s just going for it ….”
Top performances of the day included those from long jump, where athletes from all levels (except varsity, whose events were not held that day) scored in the top three overall for the event and many others achieved PR’s.
According to Michelle Tran (’17), who scored 9th in the girls JV race, the track teams’ results were stemmed from a positive attitude and collaboration amongst teammates.
“I mean a lot of times there’s negativity,” Tran said. “Like you’ll hear one person say ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so nervous!’ but then everyone [says] ‘shhshshsh’ because we don’t want that to spread. But I think that our team’s gotten a lot better at that, everyone’s good at hiding their emotions and just focusing on what they’re about to do.”
“I saw lots of PR’s and it was kind of like a chain reaction, like when I asked my friend that she got a PR, her other friends heard, and it just continued on and I think that the team did great today,” Tran said.
