By Tirthraj Patel, staff writer
With summer swiftly approaching, students are looking forward to doing volunteer work, getting a summer job, or simply taking a break after a hectic school year. However, for the track team, summer presents an opportunity to train and condition in preparation for the upcoming fall season.
The Townsend Harris track team is by far one of the largest sports teams in the school. With athletes competing in an array of events throughout the year ranging from 5ks during cross country in the fall to races and field events during indoor and outdoor seasons in the winter and spring, track can be a intense experience. As such, the end of the season is a great time to reflect and recollect on the state of the boys’ team as a whole.
Right from the very beginning, the members knew that the 2017-2018 season would be challenging. With the departure of certain top-performing seniors at the conclusion of the previous season, the boys’ track team was forced to quickly reassemble itself; and knowing that the fall season would set the pace for the rest of the year, the boys looked to begin sprinting right out the gate. By the end of season, the team had placed third in the Queens Borough Championship despite their heavy loss of seniors, which was a significant achievement that also served to validate the team’s efforts. Sprinting captain Senior Michael Calle said, “Cross country proved to the team that with enough effort and dedication, anything is possible.”
Entering the indoor season, morale was high and the team was ready to compete. The shift from cross country to indoor track meant that more of the athletes would be able to participate in the events they prefered. This season’s results, however, did not live up to the high expectations, as the team fell just short of a title. Junior Felix Montgomery commented, “Despite being unable to live up to the expectations, we were all very satisfied with how much the team improved from the start of the season.”
As the outdoor track season rolled around, the team was prepared to write off the previous disappointing finish of indoor track. With this mentality, the boys were able to secure second place at the Bruce Selman Meet, which consisted of over fifty schools in over 50 events that allowed the track team to showcase its talent over a plethora of events. Junior Joseph Zhao and sophomore Trent Santoro placed first in their respective fields while many others also performed considerably well.
Felix explained, “As a whole, the team has not done as well as we had hoped, but this can be credited to a combination of factors— ranging from inclement weather to numerous injuries.”
Looking toward the future, the track team remains hungry for more titles and anticipates the 2018-19 track season to prove more fruitful. With more members graduating this year, the underclassmen are expected to continue to represent the team with hard work and dedication to the craft.
Felix concluded, “The underclassmen… are dedicated to the team and driven to succeed. Based on their performance so far, they show real promise in terms of being able to bring home championships in the upcoming future.”
