Girls track places fourth at Conference, sends triple jumper to Nationals

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Nata

The 4×2 runners prepare for their race at indoor conference.

The girls track team is off to a great start and looking even better going forward into the outdoor season.

The girls varsity track team placed fourth at their Conference with their JV team winning for the first time in Grayslake North history. The journeys and accomplishments they have had helps set their goals in place for yet another great season while undergoing preparations for the outdoor season.

The girls track team is progressing into higher works in their season, in practice and at meets. During practices, they take the time to work on technique and skills for their given events, and at meets they make sure to put those practices to use.

“We’re making excellent strides for improvement,” said head coach Elaina Armata.

“[At the Huntley Invite this year], we scored 3X the amount of points we did last year at that invite,” Armata said.

At the Conference track meet, the team scored nearly two times the points they made last Conference, while JV won first place for the first time. Many athletes during that meet cracked the top 20 all-time for track team records. According to throws coach Reggie McClure II, this season the highest ranking throws are Sanaa Jones with 9.40 meters, ranking fifth all time, and Kaylee Juarez with 8.64 meters, ranking eigth all time.

“Madison Peterson actually ran a 5:22 for the mile, which [made] her the number one all time freshman. Lucy Roscoe, another freshman, just took second all-time in the 3200 with a 12:25. Sophia Barszcz was the triple jump champion, and what’s cool about that is that it is her first year ever doing triple, so in a month and a half she went from being a nonjumper to Conference champion. We had our second place 4×8. We scored points in every event except for two of them. For JV, we won the Conference. We had a ton of champions in that,” Armata said.

“Almost every single athlete had PRd from the first meet [to] now. Almost at every single meet there was a PR, and this last meet was a huge conference boost going into outdoor,” said jump and sprints coach Martin Mena.

While the track season is going great in the indoor season, the team plans to be even greater in the outdoor season. The track team is made up of mostly underclassmen who are competing at the varsity level. They are competing against athletes who are upperclassmen. With this disadvantage, the track team is doing incredibly well in its position.

“Most of our athletes are competing at the varsity level, especially with sprints. They have been freshmen and sophomores. We have a lot of girls with sub 30s in the 200, so that just shows we will have a big outdoor season,” Armata said.

While the indoor season is going amazingly smooth, the team is undergoing preparations to transition to the outdoor season. The team must begin adjusting to the weather outdoors, while throwers are preparing for a new event.

“Getting accustomed to practice outdoors, layering up, and making sure that we are clothed because of the weather and ready for drills,”Mena said.

“Our practice structure and lifting workouts will change. We have to now prepare for two events instead of one. With our workouts, we will do more maintenance work and more conditioning, but will still do our Olympic lifts. We will also transition to the discus ring being a bit bigger than the shot put ring as well. For the team, they are all expecting to build on their current PRs, but they are also looking forward to us adding discus. They are also expecting to learn the spin technique/rotational technique,” McClure said.

Conference champion Sophia Barszcz went to Adidas Nationals for triple jump and competed on March 17. She placed 21st.