Track Trounces in Tri-Meet

It was Saturday, May 4, the sun was shining and the girls’ track team was preparing for a home meet on the PEA track. They competed against Scarborough and Winnacunnet, two teams against which they didn’t compete last year. The PEA team clinched first place with a total of 147.5 points, and both other teams trailed around 100 points behind Big Red.This season, the girls’ track team has had many great meets. The team won first place by over 30 points against Governors, Worcester, Bradford Christian Academy, Hyde School and Landmark. During its meet against Andover and St. Paul’s School, the team placed second behind Andover by only 5 points. Each week their practices are meant to prepare them for the upcoming Saturday competition. Senior Ogechi Nwankwoala explained that “we set up our practices during the week by technique days, where we split into our event groups; speed days, where we focus on maximum speed; speed endurance days, when we focus on our endurance and pre-meet days, where we focus on what we’re running in the meet the following day.” Starting on Monday, the team goes through an upper body lift, followed by a max speed day on Tuesday and, on Wednesday, the team completes an intense workout instead of a meet. On Thursday, the team has a tempo for recovery and, on Friday, to rest and prepare for the meet, the team practices block starts, handoffs and sprints. On Saturday, the team was excited that the meet was held at home—especially with the warm weather expected for the afternoon. Prep Kaylee Bennett mentioned that they “had a strong, growth mindset, which means no bricks and only positivity.” The team was focused on doing its best and running solid times before Interschols in a few weeks. When the team got out to the track, there were a lot of Exonian spectators present to support the team and bring the energy levels up. Nwankwoala mentioned that having a home meet makes her more confident because the track is familiar and people from the Exeter community can stop by to support the team. At the meet, the track team got first place in the 100 meter dash, the 200 meter dash, the 4x100 meter and the 4x400 meter relay. The team worked very hard, and lowers Audrey Malila and Evie Houston had a number of events on Saturday and ran all of them to their fullest potential. Bennett noted that “there were some standouts, but overall everyone did a great job this meet.” Despite numerous injuries, Big Red has still been able to improve throughout their season. “A decent amount of us have been getting injured on and off and so that’s a little bit unfortunate, but everyone is improving very steadily, which is nice to see and nice to showcase, which is very exciting,” said senior Lulu Ezekwenna.Going forward, the team has one last meet against Deerfield and NMH before Interschols and then their final meet against Andover. Its main focus in the next few weeks is to have good practices that focus on the events that the team is most likely to compete in and to improve in those races. On the other hand, throwers are preparing by lifting heavy and staying healthy. “The season has gone very well thus far; I am enjoying my time competing, and I cannot wait for the bigger meets at the end of the season!”  said upper Carly Kirsch.