On February 7th, the SWHS Indoor Track & Field team walked slowly towards their bus to the Floyd Little Athletic Center. Everyone felt a lingering feeling about the weight of knowing they were competing as a whole team together for the last time at the Last Chance State Qualifier. 

The bus was warm and music was blasting in everyone’s ears while they got pumped for the big day. They walked off the bus and the cold wind hit everyone as the team headed into the building and past the security checkpoint. Once on the track, the team collectively started their warm-ups while everyone began to calm down and get ready to win against their competition.  

Sadly, the Indoor Track season has come to an end, but not without the athletes having a great season. Everyone won and hit personal records (PRs) during the season. Some athletes on the team wanted to express their opinions on the season. 

“Before every competition I eat Skittles,” said junior Lloyd Boateng. He had a great season making states and hitting PRs. “Overall my season was great. I made states and I was very happy about that. I improved on my running and it showed during the season.”

Senior Hailey Campbell had a great season hitting PRs and almost making it to states. She is a great athlete and teacher to the new freshman hurdler on the team, Anna McKenna.

She also mentioned that even though she is a senior she is, “Not sad about leaving, I feel neutral about it.”

Heading to the Last Chance State Qualifier, the bus is filled with music playing on a speaker, this music is from the Track and Field Hype playlist on Spotify. The team listened to this playlist on the way to the meet to hype themselves up before the big competition. On the bus ride back home, the speaker was still on but on low volume while the team was sleeping after the meet. 

“Listening to rap music and I am just getting ready to do what I gotta do. I would also sleep on the bus and eat a little snack on the way,” said freshman and newcomer to track & field, Anna McKenna.

During the season, a typical practice was the team’s sprinters would be together in study hall from 2:15 to 3:00, and then they would go to the back gym and warm up. The event people would be in the gym from 2:15 to 3:00 warming up and practicing for their event work. Around 3:05, the coaches break down and discuss what practice will look like for the day. A typical practice was when girls lifted upper body then boys would lift lower body. Then girls and boys ran. The teams are normally not split, but they saw a spike in people wanting to join the indoor track team this year. Last year they had around 40 and this year around 60. 

A huge congratulations to Alyssa, Audrey, Keely, Mallory, Serena, Cyrus, Lloyd, Sam, and Shawn for qualifying for states. The boys 4×200 team, Cyrus, Lloyd, Sam, and Shawn, broke the school record from 2001.