Junior Victoria Ketzler and senior Yule Pieters were recently named indoor state champions. At the state finals, they both dominated their respective events with no let up in sight. Ketzler finished first in the varsity girls’ 1600 meter final with a new PR of 5:05, while Pieters put up a 6’2 high jump and first place as well.

After a successful indoor season came to an end, there wasn’t much time for rest. Ketzler immediately had to begin training for the Indoor New Balance Nationals in Boston, MA, which took place on Mar. 9 to 12, as she was the only distance runner from this school who qualified. In the meantime, everyone else only had a week and a half break before the highly anticipated outdoor track practicing season began with Coach Kellie Redmond back at the helm.

On Mar. 1, outdoor practices began. The first three days were all about acclimation: easy paced workouts and short track sessions were included. The following week started off with an 800-meter time trial, and was followed by a rotation of speed work and baseline setting runs out on the road.

As for the time trial, everybody who raced for both the girls and boys finished with PRs. The top 10 boys times were junior Nick Wang (2:25), sophomore Ellis Eppard (2:23), junior Kurtus Hsu (2:22), sophomore Rendon Yerman (2:22), sophomore Ricardo Gomez Vera (2:21), sophomore Kenneth Shen (2:20), freshman Luke Gabrielle (2:20), freshman Kal Yewslew (2:18), sophomore Edward Sun (2:08) and junior Troy Bailey (2:07).
The top 10 girls times were freshman Ava Eisenman (3:13), freshman Molly Eisenfeld (3:12), senior Hailey Tien (3:09), senior Julianne Yao (2:57), sophomore Aanya Tiwari (2:57), sophomore Annie Sun (2:51), senior Maya Gottesman (2:40), senior Rebecca Vasconez (2:35), freshman Charlotte Chang (2:33) and junior Meilani Rodgers (2:28).
Some of the newest PRs for both sides included sophomore David See (2:27), senior Sebastian Lising (2:32), sophomore Eva Veizis (3:30) and freshman Anna Rusnock (3:30).

Following the time trial was a rotation of speed workouts on the track or easy paced recovery road runs, depending on which training group Redmond put each runner into. The speed workouts were anything from sets of 200s to sets of 800s at different speeds based on a pace calculator app. The road runs included anywhere from 20 to 60 minute runs but all were at relatively the same pacing throughout.

The sprinters and throwers also began practices around the same time and the throwers participated in an out-of-season “only throwers” scrimmage on Mar. 18 in preparation for the opening meet of the regular season against Churchill.
“The first few practices were about getting our technique right, which is important,” senior Brendan Glaser said. “We then put it all together with throwing on the actual pit and lifting occasionally.”

Glaser recorded a PR of 93.5 inches in the discus event, which smashed his previous record of 79.11 that he recorded during the 2022 outdoor season last spring. Here is the full schedule:

Wednesday, March 22 vs Churchill
Wednesday, March 29 vs RM / Whitman
Saturday, April 1 – QO Cougar Relays
Tuesday, April 11 vs WJ / BCC
Friday, April 14 -, Under Armor Park Invite
Saturday, April 22 – Trojan Invitational
Thursday, April 27 – Penn Relay Carnival
Saturday, April 29 – Gator Invitational
Tuesday, May 9 – MCPS A Championships
Saturday, May 13 – MCPS B Championships