Boys track heads into True Team State with high hopes

This spring, the boys track and field team has started off with a bang. Reaching the halfway mark in the season, the athletes have shown their skills, abilities and their drive to win a meet. With multiple individual and team first places, they have shown how every teammate matters when it comes to scoring.

Leading in to the season the boys were faced with a challenge: the weather. For the first six weeks of their season, they were training completely inside. With multiple different sports teams being forced to train inside, it resulted in spacing issues. The team has worked on catching up to where they should be at this point in the season.

“Overall, I think we’re a little behind where I expected, but I think that’s mostly impacted by the weather,” sprints coach Jason Peterson said. “There’s areas that we’re a little more behind on than others. But overall, I think we’re progressing towards where we need to be.”

Boys track consists of multiple different groups including sprints, distance, jumps and throws. Throughout those groups, they complete different workouts every day. On one side of the track lies a group of jumpers, hurdlers and pole vaulters called the “Stillwater Verticals”. The group is led by coach Ben Straka who also teaches at the high school.

Junior pole vaulter Jackson Tweed explained how the Stillwater Verticals “consist of the 110 meter hurdles, the 300 hurdles, pole vault and high jump.” Tweed excels in pole vault, with his current personal record in 12’3.

Throughout the season, the team competes at multiple conference and non-conference meets. While they strive to do their best at all meets, one specifically stands out from the rest. True Team State is a favorite of many athletes because of its acknowledgement of overall team strength. While the MSHSL state meet for individual runners takes place in June, True Team allows teams to win a team state championship. The section 2AAA True Team State meet will take place on May 20 at the Pony Stadium.

“The goal every year is to be top three in true team state,” Peterson said. “A lot of guys really want to win the meet because it’s been such a long time since we have as a group won it. And that’s the overall goal is hopefully set ourself up in a in a position to be not just on the podium but hopefully win true team,” he added.

While there is a lot of focus on True Team, the team recently celebrated their much deserved win of their very own Pony Classic. The meet consisted of a unique lineup, and some unordinary relays took place including the 4×75 relay, 4×110 shuttle hurdles and a medley consisting of 1200-400-800-1600m. This year, the Pony Classic was extra special because the boys won first place for the first time in 10 years.

Senior Ryan McDowell shared how the whole team was determined to win the whole thing. After so many years of coming so close, they really wanted to prove that they could win. The team beat runner-up Mounds View, who were recurring champions by seven points.

Coming off a season filled of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the coaches and athletes were ready to return back to normal. They wanted to focus on a lot of outdoor training and keep their indoor training at a minimum. For a lot of the runners, things were new to them due to the fact that only a few had ever had a normal season.

Peterson expressed how they “can act a little more normal as we have historically done. I’ve kind of reverted back to my full training program. Most of the guys, even the seniors haven’t really had that because they really only had one year in 2019, we missed a year and then last year was kind of jagged with training. It’s been nice to see that kind of roll back into play.”

“The group that we have from ninth grade on had been a really strong group. I think they bonded really well, which always helps in how they compete against not just each other, but other teams. You just you could feel a little more tightness with the group. They’re really rooting for each other and that all helps build at any day on good performances,” Peterson said.

The team will continue to showcase their abilities and talent throughout the second half of the season.