Girls’ and boys’ track teams had great season

The Varsity Girls Track team started out the season strong tying for first in the season opener and winning their second meet by over 60 points. Unfortunately, at their last meet of the regular season, the girls’ team fell short to Londonderry. Within the first three meets, all of their relays had qualified, and they had some standout sophomores including Emma Checovich, Corina Chao and Julia Schwechheimer.

However, the team was fortunate enough to have their biggest team ever in the history of Winnacunnet with 48 girls. “We [had] a lot of depth this year,” said Captain Andrea Nash (12). Nash, along with seniors Nicole Harter and Sarah Filiault, is leading the team to a hopeful victory at the Class L’s state meet on February 5th.

The girls placed first out of 11 teams at the Seacoast meet at the University of Southern Maine. For the girls, it is their 2nd victory at Seacoast in the past 3 years. “We only had 1 person finish first in an event, but we had a lot of 2nd, 3rd and 4th finishers in multiple events which helped us,” said junior thrower Ashley Kelley. The key to success at the meet was the team’s depth. “We didn’t have to rely on one person,” said junior sprinter Taylor Blood. “[Our throwers Britta Gabrielson, Chao and Kelley] always placed and their points [were] huge to us. They [were] huge contributors,” said Blood.

With such a short season, the Boys Winter Track Team had one goal; “to win it all,” said tri-captain Kyle Nelson, along with Ryan Kelley and Ryan Doherty. It was a small team this year, but their goal was for as many runners to qualify for finals. It wasn’t too tough, as the team had many talented runners. Sophomore Tommy Harter started out leading the team in earning points, qualifying in the first event he ran of the season (600 meter). Senior sprinter Sebastian Dawson was also a key contributor in terms of points, and he did well in many different events (55 meter hurdles, 300 meter dash, 4×160 meter relay, long jump). Runner Seamus Cullinane (11) also qualified early in the season in the 600 meter and Justin Trott (10) in the 3000 meter.

This year’s team was well-rounded. “We [had] a lot of cross country kids who [did] pretty well,” said Dawson. Another strong area for the team was the 4×160 meter relay team, made up of sprinters Drew Rocco, Devin Chen, Kelley and Dawson. “Our sprinters [were] pretty good for the 55 meter,” added Cullinane. Christian Dyer also gave the team a strong thrower.

The team’s season started out well, coming in fourth out of eight teams for their first meet, tied for first their second meet and won their third meet by a wide margin. “When you beat people, it’s cool, I love competing,” said Doherty. The team also participated in the Wild Cat Relays and Seacoast Meet where the boys’ team tied for first with Oyster River. Because there was only one trophy, a coin was flipped and Winnacunnet lost the toss and the trophy. The boys’ team had two open meets, in which runners had to be in a certain time range to qualify. Then in order to go to states, runners had to meet the state qualifying times in their individual events.