Undefeated track and field team is commited to keep the winning streak going two years straight

 The athletes’ faces are etched with dedication. And practice has just started. There are the throwers, flexing their muscles in anticipation of the work to come. There are the pole-vaulters, preparing their individual poles for practice. There are the runners, the most numerous of the team, all in various acts of getting ready. Some are stretching, other setting up blocks and hurdles, and some are tying the laces of their spikes.

This is the image one would see at every track and field practice leading up to their final meet.

The league championships for track and field, which concluded yesterday, was what the team meticulously prepared for throughout the entire season.

At practice, senior Brian Hamilton, a discus and shot putter, holds the 1.6 pound discus in his hand. “I practice from 2:25, right when school gets out, until 5:30,” Hamilton said. And so does the rest of the team. Andre Lindsey, junior, boasts about the team’s “undefeated season.”

“We haven’t lost this year, and we didn’t lose last year,” Lindsey said. And no one on the team wants to tarnish that undefeated record.

Each person on the track and field team knows what they have to do; they know what they specifically need to work on. And they’re working hard. There are others, the pole vaulters, the long distance runners, and the hurdle runners.

Junior Kevin Tran is a pole vaulter. He has been pole vaulting for two months and plans to continue next year. “There are three steps to pole vaulting,” he says. “Running with it, planting for takeoff, and getting your feet up. I’m best at planting my feet and getting my feet up.” He explains that each of the pole vaulters is good at different steps, saying that being the best means being able to perform all three steps.

It’s the same with all the other events as well. Long distance running means knowing how to properly pace yourself and when to force yourself to go faster. Running hurdles means knowing the exact amount of steps between each hurdle and which foot to use to propel yourself up and over the hurdle.

Despite the obvious differences between the 16 different events that make up track and field, there is one goal to unite them all.

Winning.

The members of the track and field team respect each other. They recognize that it takes an incredible amount of time and training to perfect their individual event. The mantra of the team is “be the first one on the field, and the last one off.”

Each team member was determined to give their sport their all. And that determination paid off. It paid off with two years of undefeated glory. It paid off when each team member supported the others in their attempts to beat their own personal records. And it paid off when the team as a whole grew to be better.