Track and Field season wrap up

After a busy preseason and a successful season, Samo’s boys and girls track teams went undefeated in league, earning them the title of Ocean League Champions. With the addition of new coach Krishna Curry and new workouts, this year’s team has set new standards for the future of the program and has added to the reputation of the Samo track program throughout southern California.As with any sport, strong runners are developed  during the preseason with specialized training schedules and techniques. According to Jennifer LaMori (’14), this year’s workouts differed greatly from those of previous years.“We have been doing longer and harder workouts, which have made a difference in building strength and speed,” LaMori said.According to coach Tania Fischer, the strong coaching staff has created a solid support system for the students to rely on. With six specialized coaches, each student receives individual support so that the members can then come together as a competitive team.“Any coach is your coach, and I think that is the message that really made this team special,” Krishna said. “We worked hard together and that was my goal, to bring in a staff that gets along so that the kids could always feel comfortable, whoever the adult was.”With 120 students in the program, a strong feeling of unity may be difficult to achieve, especially when students compete in individual events that differ so greatly. However, as a result of the commitment by each of the coaches, a greater sense of togetherness was achieved. According to Fischer, this is one of the defining attributes of this year’s team, in comparison to past years’.“We have developed a lot as a team this year,” varsity runner Rachel Kiekhofer (’14) said. “Our times were generally faster this season than in the past, and I felt more camaraderie between the distance runners, sprinters, jumpers and throwers.”After beating out their competition in league, fourteen of Samo’s athletes qualified for the CIF preliminary round, and nine of them became individual league champions. These students faced great challenges in the preliminary round, competing against students from Division 1 schools from all over Southern California. In this preliminary round, the 36-40 qualifiers for each event were narrowed down to only nine competitors who moved on to the next round.“If you look at the qualifying marks, we are really good in our league but when you get to the next level, it is really tough to move on,” Coach Tania Fischer said.After the preliminary round on May. 17, only Marcel Espinoza (’16) moved on to the CIF finals with the first seed time of 10.68 in the 100m. He then competed in CIF finals, where he placed second and moved onto the next round: state trials on May 30.Coming off of a league win with various individual league champions, the future of the team seems very hopeful in the eyes of both the coaches and the students. In particular, the girls’ team was very young this year, consisting mostly of freshmen and sophomores. Competing against runners who are two years older gives these students a chance to compete at a high level and prepare themselves for the coming seasons.“The girls are very young so I want them to go and get experience, so they know what to expect next year,” Fischer said. “Our girls’ distance program has really elevated itself, at league we won first through sixth place in the mile. We took all of the spots, and same with the two mile. They had a good cross-country season and then a good track season and we are only losing 2-3 senior women. We have a young team that is just going to be there for a couple of years now.”Students this year who have reached new heights in their running careers have not only changed what is expected of them but have in turn opened up new doors for the younger runners in the program.“I think that the expectations are higher,” Fischer said. “There is the expectation that we are not just going to league, we’re going to move on to CIF. It’s just a given. [Past runners] have paved that path, and now that one person has done it, the mindset has changed for everyone. Once it’s been accomplished, I think that the younger kids don’t know anything else, they only know this expectation.”Overall, from freshman to seniors, the team has come a long way in the past few months and continues to prepare for the future, whether it be college track and field, running for personal gain or for another season of Samo track and field.friosfetchko@thesamohi.com