The boys’ track and field team aims for a successful season after standard performances in the State Championship, hoping to build up the team through underclassmen promise.
The GHSA moved the start date for spring sports this year to Jan. 27, 19 days later than the start date last season, limiting the amount of time the track and field team had to prepare for meets.
“The late start had a huge impact because it took out three weeks of training and those three weeks of training is base training you do early, to allow kids to train harder later in the season,” head coach Del Ellerton said. “You’re having to cut corners to still get them prepared.”
Despite these challenges, the Knights are working to adjust, having taken advantage of the time they had.
“The late start to my season definitely wasn’t ideal or planned, but being able to start was a good step in the right direction,” junior distance runner Cameron Collier said. “Right now the focus is just getting some of the rust off and learning how to race track again after a four month break from racing with off-season training and a 10 month gap from last track season.”
Last year, graduated senior Xzavian Blackman placed 3rd in the 400 meter dash and 300 meter hurdles and Collier placed 3rd in the 3200 meter run. The team additionally saw lots of improvement, with many runners competing at the city and region meets.
“I think the team’s biggest area of growth since last year is in experience, after only really losing two seniors from our varsity team, everyone else who competed at city and region, or qualified for state are coming back this year,” Collier said. “This should help eliminate the nerves of being on those stages and last year opened up some eyes of just how hard some things are.”
Senior Kenari Tigner said the team finds success in pushing each other in practice, helping them perform in meets.
“The team’s biggest success has been everyone competing with each other and others in the track meet, and most overcame their fears and stepped up when we needed them to,” Tigner said.
The Knights have already seen success this season, placing 4th in the Atlanta Games on March 8, going up against highly ranked opponents.
“We hosted the Atlanta games on March 8, and we had over 30 teams, and we ended up finishing fourth, behind three 6-AAAAAA teams,” Ellerton said. “The meet was won by East Coweta High School, second place was West Lake, third place was Lakeside Evans and we were the fourth place team. When you can place in a meet like that, which requires quality performances to place with that type of competition, it gives a barometer of where we may be. I think we’re headed in the right direction, but we have a lot of things we need to work on.”
The team has many underclassmen stepping into key roles, creating a foundation for the future.
“The bulk of the team is really, really young,” Ellerton said. “This group of kids that we have, 9th and 10th grade, if they can stay together and develop over the next couple of years, I do think there’s a strong foundation that could be put into place.”
The Knights overall see their most potential with building up the younger runners during the season.
“I think like the years past, a big strength of this team is that we are still young, after my freshman year we were left with a lot of underclassmen who have kept showing up year after year, and are ready to make the jump,” Collier said. “There is also a lot of ambition on our team, whether it’s chasing times, school records or most of all just winning.”
With the contribution of underclassmen and the returning high-achieving runners, the Knights are looking to come back stronger this year.
“The team is hoping to achieve a spot on the podium so far,” Tigner said. “We have bigger goals and are still trying to piece things together so we can be much stronger, but we are most definitely hoping to get a spot on the podium and someone to be a state champ.”
