The spring outdoor track and field season is off and running. There were three intercounty meets against Churchill, Richard Montgomery/Whitman and BCC/Walter Johnson in addition to the Quince Orchard Cougar Relays Invitational and the Park Invite. Great performances were shown all over the stat sheets, and PRs were a hot commodity among runners.

The competition season opened up with the one and only home meet vs the Churchill Bulldogs on Mar. 22, which also was senior night. After the heartwarming ceremony, Head Coach Kellie Redmond wasted no time putting the team’s best foot forward. Sophomore Edward Sun led in the boys 1600 with a near PR of 4:42 and third place overall. Following him was the other half of the dynamic sophomore duo Rendon Yerman (5:07), sophomore Ellis Eppard (5:16), senior Sebastian Lising (5:22 PR), junior Nicholas Wang (5:29 PR), and junior Yoni Zaslavsky (5:34 PR).

In addition, a group of seven underclassmen all finished within 17 seconds of each other in dominant fashion. The open 800 was led by junior Troy Bailey (2:09, freshman Kal Yewslew (2:18), and freshman Ricardo Gomez-Vera (2:19 PR). Freshman duo Owen Berman and Luke Gabrielle both placed well in a condensed two mile race when the weather was at its hottest.

As for the girls, they didn’t cease to impress once again. Senior Rebecca Vasconez (5:45) and sophomore Annie Sun (6:04) led in the 1600 while several freshmen floated around seven minutes or just below seven. In the 800, junior Victoria Ketzler put up a season record 2:21 while her partner Meilani Rodgers followed with a SR of 2:27. Lastly, in the girls 3200, senior Maya Gottesman hit her own SR of 11:56.

Since there were so many meets in such a short amount of time, here are the best performances for the remainder that have happened so far.

#1: Bailey’s 800: He kicked off the season with a high bar near PR of 2:09 against Churchill and third place overall. In just his first full season as a distance runner since formally being a sprinter, he’s clearly shown he can compete with the best.

#2: Girls 4×8 2nd place finish: Cougar was a rainy meet but that didn’t stop them from dominating the QO relays to start out April. (Rodgers, Charlotte Chang, Ketzler, and Vasconez). This seems to be the best four for the job as availability has fluctuated.

#3: Yerman’s second place 3200: He has continuously dominated both the 1600 and the 3200 but a near PR 10:31 against BCC and WJ on April 11 in the two mile was among his best races of the year.

#4: Freshman Molly Eisenfeld’s PR 1600: The freshman class have continued to impress all season, but one key performance was during the underclassmen mile at the Park Invite on April 14 where she placed 24th overall with a PR 6:35.

#5: Ketzler’s medal winning performance: The girls’ distance team leader struck yet another podium-worthy performance when she ran a then PR 5:07 in the girls elite 1600 at Severna Park.

As the postseason meets arrive, Coach Redmond has implemented more speed and tempo workouts into the schedule as a means of allowing everyone to be in the best shape before the County invitational, which for many will be their last meet of the season.

Knowing that only select runners will qualify for regionals and states, Redmond will begin to test the ones on the border of making it in the coming weeks to see if she can bolster up the postseason squad even further by adding some last minute additions to both the girls’ and boys’ teams.