After a grueling indoor season, the girl’s track team had multiple athletes compete in City Championships, and continued to exceed expectations with seniors Emily Tan and Nikki Wong qualifying for States.
“To qualify for Cities, you either have to be #1 for a certain event during Borough Champs or meet the qualifying standards, which PSAL posts at the beginning of every season,” commented senior Emily Tan. “Generally, we send a good amount of girls to Cities, so we expected that at the beginning of the season.”
The team competed in several events, including the 4x800m, race walking, and triple jump along with individuals for pole vault. Out of the other schools, Townsend placed 8th out of 31 teams, exceeding expectations, especially with only 9 athletes competing.
Both Emily and Nikki achieved first and second respectively for the race walking event, and secured their spots in States with senior Carine He following closely behind. “We wanted our girls to be on the podium and with Carine earning 3rd place and Nikki and I earning 2nd and 1st, I think we did a good job of living up to that,” said Emily.
The competitive races began to get physical the day of the meet. Carine remembered an“incident where another racewalker pushed them [Emily and Nikki] both on her way to the finish. She was later disqualified.” Carine also participated in the triple jump, placing third, and sophomore Amelia Wiszowaty placing 5th in the pole vault after reaching 7 feet and two inches.
The 4×8 team which comprised of senior Jasmine Shum, sophomores Chloe Muñoz and Nikki Chang, and junior Amy Xing came in 7th place with some even hitting new personal records.
Both Nikki and Emily are extremely optimistic and hope to go as far as possible in States.
“It’s super exciting to be able to make it to states but it’s intimidating competing against really accomplished athletes,” Nikki said. Emily further added that she hopes to beat her season PR. “Earlier this season, I competed in an invitational against race walkers outside of PSAL and it made me realize that even though I’m #1 in PSAL, I still have a lot of work and practice to do in order to improve.”
Carine concluded by stating, “Overall, I am very proud of the team’s performance. Almost everyone who went walked away with a medal or a PR. Our team used to send only one or two people to states but for the past two years, over 10 have gone.”
Photo courtesy of Chloe Muñoz.
