On May 10, the boys varsity track and field team concluded its outdoor regular season at the Duneland Athletic Conference championship. The meet, which took place at Portage High School, saw slight issues with scoring as lightning delayed the last event, pole vault. However, the team managed to finish in fourth place with a score of 82.5 points.
“I’m proud of the way things went. Some things went really well, and some things we still have to work on. All in all, I think that everyone competed the best they could tonight,” Coach Jeffery Rhody, Science said.
Several varying emotions were certainly present at this DAC meet. Some individuals focused positively on individual performance times, rather than placing.
“Sure, in the race, I might not have gotten the best place, but I PR’d again by four seconds. To me, that’s a big deal– my time dropped from 4:45 to 4:41,” Andrew Ackerman (12) said.
Meanwhile, others took their performance at this meet as an opportunity to learn and improve.
“Going into this meet, I was seeded third for both events– shot and discus. I really wanted to PR for discus with 150 feet, but unfortunately I ended up throwing only 136 feet. For shot put, it didn’t go as planned. I ended up getting sixth for shot put with 47’11’’. I feel like there’s always areas of improvement, especially with form,” Michael Taylor (12) said.
Amid the mixed feelings, the team is focused on strong performances and individual improvement in the upcoming tournament season, which includes the Sectional, Regional and State meets.
“It would be nice to win Sectionals as a team, but our goal is obviously to get as many people through to the Regional and State finals as we can. That’s how we’re going to look to set up our lineup, not to necessarily score the most points but to get people to the level they can achieve,” Coach Rhody said.
