Track starts season, double first place finishes

Micheal Simmons, Blue M Editor-In-Chief

The boys and girls track team both took first by a large margin on Thursday, coming home with 12 first place finishes for the boys and seven for the girls. The boys led by 61.5 points and the girls by 12 points.

While a lead like that is usually caused by the upperclassmen, some underclassmen did some of the heavy lifting with sophomores Daniel Harkin and Gabriel Effiong taking home multiple first place finishes.

“Coming into the race not knowing much about track and wanting to do well really made me anxious,” Effiong said. “Not knowing a lot about track still makes me a little anxious, but with help from my coach I think that anxiety will go away. When I crossed the finish line and realized that I did well all the anxiousness left and I felt super good.”

Nerves didn’t hinder the underclassmen a bit, as Effiong won the boys 100 meter dash with a time of 11.52 and Harkin won both the boys 1600 meter and 3200 meter dash with a time of 4:45.68 and 10:15.06.

While the sophomores enjoyed their moment atop the podium and in the spotlight, the upperclassmen were busy placing first. Seniors were responsible for six of the boys first place finishes, including the relay teams and four of the girls first place finishes. Of the girls, senior Clara Mayfield won the most first place finishes, winning both the girls 1600 meter and 3200 meter with times of 5:08.25 and 11:03.55.

“[Winning by a lot] felt good,” Mayfield said. “I don’t think we were expecting too much competition overall, and it’s certainly good that we came away with a lot of top finishes. I think a lot of the top athletes including me were racing the clock because I was far ahead of everyone else. When that’s the case it’s harder to get good times, but I’m happy with it since it was the first meet.”

Despite obliterating the competition, the team reminds themselves that are to face the best in the state at some point.

“There are several teams we will see that have very talented athletes,” Mayfield said. “There is also Kansas Relays that a few athletes will go to in about a month where most of the top competition in the state will be seen. It’s a great opportunity to practice racing really fast people.”

The team will compete again on Friday at Junction City where they hope to continue dominating.