The South Windsor High School girls outdoor track team won 90-58 against Manchester, on April 8th, with 50 girls racing on the track.
There were many challenges that were overcome that day in addition to the hurdles as the day began with fog and light rain, with temperatures around 39°F in the early morning. As the day progressed, temperatures only reached a high of 41°F but the wind was brutal and there were occasional flurries as temperatures were dropping into the 30’s later that evening.
“The track meet was very cold,” junior Bella McKenna said. “Even with that disadvantage, the team definitely pulled through and ended up winning the meet because of it.”
The meet began at 3:45 PM, and early on, Manchester’s announcer remarked, ‘This is just our practice meet for East Hartford,” referring to the matchup against South Windsor.
However, Coach McCullough proceeded to lead SWHS, giving Manchester a challenging match and ending in a phenomenal win.
“I am very proud of the team. They did really well and preserved through some really challenging weather that day. They were able to do their best despite the challenges, and we have a big group of underclassmen who made a really big difference with contributing points,” Coach McCullough said.
The team had girls from every grade winning events across the board. Elsa Gately, an 11th grader, took first place in the 100-meter dash with an impressive time of 13.16 seconds.
The girls hurdles team consisted of freshman Juliana Mayer, sophomore Sadhana Ganesan and senior Izabella McKenna. They swept the 100 meter hurdles event with Juliana Mayer winning with 18.2 seconds, while Bella won the 300 meter with one minute and 8 seconds.
“The 100 hurdles was one of my hardest because I was very cold and there ended up being a mishap where we had 8 hurdles instead of 10 hurdles so the varsity heat had to run again,” McKenna said. “With this, my 300 hurdles ended up being very good, and I was very happy with how I performed at the meet.”
Further wins include, junior Sofia Holovatska who won both the 800 and 1600 meter, freshman Zoe Bailey who won shot put with 27 feet, Junior Malory Mead won Javelin and high jump and sophomore Nayana Pradeep won discus with 72 feet.
“The weather conditions were really harsh; there were really strong gusts of wind. I felt okay, but because of how hard the weather was, I wasn’t very happy with my time, but I was proud of the result because of the obstacles of the weather. I was also just happy back racing because my last meet was weeks ago on February 23nd,” Holovatska said.
Despite the freezing temperatures and strong winds, the girls managed to pull through and give South Windsor High school outdoor track an extraordinary win.
