Along with boys tennis, girls soccer, and boys baseball, coed track field has started practice for the spring sports season. The team practices every day after school for 2 hours. The team has retained several members from the previous season and is looking strong ahead of their first meets. Still, the coaches are prepared for strenuous practices and the hurdles that come with track and field.
“We typically do some conditioning [during practice],” explained Head Coach Candice Baldwin. “Over the pre-season I send them workouts, and those daily workouts lead them up to the first day of practice. Our most successful athletes are the ones who are going to put in the work over the pre-season.”
Training during the pre-season is especially important to the track and field team since their season is only about 13 weeks long. This does not provide enough time for athletes to reach their optimal performance. Thus, preseason workouts prepare them for the practices.
Practices are also initially used to determine which events students are interested in. By doing a variety of cardio, sprint and strength work, and calisthenic routines, students can get a better idea of what event they would be the most successful in.
“For the first couple weeks of practice we do a little bit of everything,” said Coach Baldwin. “Further in the season we’ll break out into our distance, spring, mid-distance, and field events.”
This introduction to the sport is helpful, especially to the newcomers to the team. Several new people have joined the team this year, and there is a solid number returning as well. There are 13 people on the team, but Coach Baldwin expects about 7 more to join later when the winter sports season ends. Most of the team are juniors, and Coach Baldwin already sees some standout athletes.
“I think Zoe Hrabe and Jackson McNickle have been really good. A lot of those that have been with us since their freshman year have really improved significantly each year,” she said. “Taylor Easterwood started with us last year, and she’s really had a great attitude. Really anyone who’s returning we’re able to see those fitness gains, and they have that level of maturity.”
This is one of the larger track teams Barstow has had in recent years, making it more competitive as well. Larger high schools’ track teams are competitive in the sense that they generally just have larger teams. Barstow is competitive in the sense that only so many people are able to compete in certain events.
The fact that the track and field season is at the end of the year can also cause some conflicts. Because track and field is a spring sport, events and practices coincide with AP exams, finals, and other important academic events that take place at the end of the year. However, Coach Baldwin is adamant about student athletes being students before they are athletes.
“I think managing academics with track will be one of our biggest challenges,” said Coach Baldwin. “But they [the students] do a pretty good job of studying at meets.”
The team has six meets before they go to districts and sectionals, meaning a meet almost every week. This includes meets that the team goes to every year like the Midway Meet at Midway High School and the XRC Meet at Summit Christian Academy High School.
Their ultimate goal, of course, is to do well at districts and sectionals and make it to the state meet. The team would greatly appreciate support from the Barstow community, especially since they are often overlooked. Although coming out to meets is difficult, talking to athletes and commenting on their performance at events are great ways to support them.
“There’s not a lot of glory, but the students are out there running, whether it’s cold, whether it’s hot, whether it’s raining, whether it’s snowing,” said Coach Baldwin.
Good luck to the track team this season!
