Redwood Track Competes for the First Time in Over a Year

By: Kiley Langford and Dominick McCormack

On Friday April 9th, the Redwood Track and Field team hosted a meet in the Giant Bowl. The team participated in the first dual track meet since last year. 

Before the meet, there were tons of nerves but mostly excitement. Given the students had not competed in over a year, the track team was eager to run. 

Krissy Hetherington, ‘21 and Edgar Jaurrieta, ‘21 are this year’s 2021 track captains. 

Going into the season of competition, Hetherington and Jaurrieta had some of their own thoughts and team goals for the season. 

Hetherington says, “I am very excited to compete again. It’s definitely going to be different since the team is much smaller but I’m just excited to race again for the first time in over a year.” 

Since this is Hetherington’s last year, she plans on making it her best. She says, “I have a lot to prove and I’m just ready to get out there and lay it all out on the track every single race. Last year proved how much I love and miss track and it just feels good to be back. It finally feels real and I know I’ve worked hard and pushed myself in training so I’m just ready to accomplish my personal goals I’ve laid out since last season.”

As far as the goal Hetherington has for the entire team, she is really focusing on progress. She adds, “I hope everyone feels confident in their training and understands that this is just a progress check in their conditioning so far. It’s not an indicator of the entire season because it’s going to be everyone’s first race.” 

Coming back from a year long break is going to have challenges. Many of the times athletes once had may not be how they perform this year.

Hetherington says, “I just hope the team is able to put some good times out on the track so they have some good qualifying marks for future invitationals.”

She adds, “I think everyone is just ready and excited to hop back into it.” 

Hetherington hopes this dual meet against Union, “allows athletes to kinda shake out their nerves and brush that dust off by getting through this first meet of the season,” she states. 

She continues to add, “I hope each athlete accomplishes their own personal goals and we can pull off a team win over Union.” 

Going into this meet against Union, Edgar Jaurrieta says, “I feel that it’s going to be a meet to get the first meet butterflies out. It’s not going to be a super hard meet but we can’t underestimate anything or anyone.” 

Tulare Union has a team of about 30 kids which already lessons the overall competition. Most teams have taken a hit due to COVID-19, and the entirety of most track teams are small.  

Despite this, Jaurrieta says, “I’m going to push myself hard just in case what happens last year happens again.” 

For Jaurrieta, he hopes the team will take this season and make the best out of it. He says he wants to, “have everyone PR, and push everyone past the limit they know they can run/jump at. Be the best in everything we can be no matter if it’s on the track or off and take advantage of every opportunity we have.” 

One of the many great track coaches the Redwood team has is Coach Marla Garza. She is a high jump, hurdle, and girls sprint coach. 

Going into this first meet, Coach Garza says, “The upcoming meet is going to be an ice breaker, mainly to see where each individual athlete is at in their track career and where they need improvement.” 

She adds, “It will be a meet that will get our athletes ready for a hopeful season by being optimistic about the future. While most of our athletes haven’t competed in over a year, it’ll be nice to see some normalcy for our track team with this first meet of the season.” 

Coach Garza is amazing for the team to create unity given what happened last year. She says, “My team goals going into the first meet of the season is our track team coming together and being reunited.” 

She continues to add, “Our athletes watching each other compete, cheering our teammates on, and supporting one another in each event. Having the love and support of your team thrives us all in wanting to PR by working harder and stronger together.”

POST- MEET 

Lionel Inhphom, ’21 is one of the athletes that stood out during the meet against Tulare Union. He is a triple jumper, 800 runner and 4×400 meter relay runner. He is signed to continue his track career at Chico State. 

After competing, Inhphom felt really good. He claimed, “the competition was too easy.” Outside of practice, he has been staying consistent in doing his recovery, weightlifting, and healthy eating. He does these things to stay in the best shape as possible while he works on his speed, agility, and endurance.

When asked if the meet was different from past seasons, Inhphom replied, “No not at all, it felt like everything was back to normal. Same size crowd, same everything. The only thing that was different was us wearing the masks.”

Inhphom felt like he did good this past meet, but he definitely feels like there is room for improvement. His favorite part of the first meet was getting back into racing again, as well as cheering on his team!

Redwood track’s sprint coach, Delano Henry, says, “I felt like we went into the track meet and did what we were supposed to do, run hard and cheer on our fellow teammates.”

When speaking on how prepared the squad was, he felt like it’s hard to tell based off of the first meet. There was a lot of new athletes out there with a lot of nervousness and there were returners out there very eager to run.

To be better prepared for future meets, Coach Henry says, “Practices should be harder than meets. If meets become harder than practices, then as coaches we are not doing our jobs. We prepare them for the meets so that way when the time comes to compete, they don’t feel like it’s another workout.”

After watching the first meet, Henry can’t say what will happen in the future meets. But, he does know that as long as the athletes keep working and pushing each other, not only will they, but the coaches as well will remain one of the top schools in the Central Valley!

Tags: dominick mccormack, Kiley Langford, redwood gigantea, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, redwood sports, redwood track and field, track and field