Allison Gunkler
Allison Gunkler is a senior at Orchard Park High School. She is a member of the girls varsity indoor track & field team and will blog throughout the season to provide an inside look at the team. This is her second installment.
The New Year has just begun and it’s already off to a competitive start!
This past weekend the girls’ indoor track & field team traveled to Fredonia College to dominate after a week of challenging practices. Personally, and I think the girls will agree with me; this meet was one of the best ones we’ve participated in.
Our day started off with arriving to the high school at 7am to get on the bus; realizing we had a long and tiring day ahead of us. Since this meet was early in the morning the bus ride down to Fredonia was noiseless with the exception of a few girls dancing and singing to their ipods together, which is always amusing, and the enjoyable rolls Coach brings us from Costanzo’s!
We arrived at the meet around 8; everyone was still a little out of it considering most of us slept most of the way to the meet.
At 9am the fun had just began! The meet was off and we all couldn’t wait to get on the track and prove to ourselves that all the hard work we’ve done would pay off, which most every girl on our team had accomplished.
Up first were Holly Bogdan, Melissa Vaughn and Cassie Kaczmarek in the 55-meter hurdles. Each girl got a new personal record and Cassie is just .03 seconds away from sectionals! She said, “It gets very aggravating coming closer and closer to the sectional qualifying time every meet”. She should make the qualifying time at our next meet next Saturday, which is also at Fredonia.
Next were Rami Major and Janee Deck in the 1000-meter, and considering Coach wasn’t able to get official times because of confusion with how many laps the competitors had left, both girls did very well.
Shannon Smith, Rami Major, Marissa Maggioli and Sarah Pagano were up next in the 600-meter. All four girls did extremely well. This was the first time Sarah ran the 600 and she ran a 2:01. Coach was very pleased with her and so was the team!
Towards the middle of the meet brought the 55-meter dash. Jamie Guadagno, Brandi Bernas and Maddie Sheehan showed off their speed and all got new personal records which they were very excited about.
The 300-meter was up next! Shannon Smith, Rami Major and Madison Hornung showed off their competitive side in this event! Again, all three girls got a new personal record and Rami broke a 48, running a 47.1 – congrats!
The events we’ve all been waiting for… the relays. The 4×400-meter and the 4×200-meter headed down to the track to prove to their team that they came there to win. The 4×400 which included me, Marissa Maggioli, Rami Major and Shannon Smith finished in 2nd place with a time of 4:34 which was a drop of 2 seconds!
The most exciting event of the day was next – the 4×200-meter. The four girls on the team made a promise to each other and to coach that they were going to run under 2 minutes for their first time. The team consisting of Holly Bogdan, Brandi Bernas, Maddie Sheehan and Jamie Guadagno showed themselves that miracles can happen. Holly and Maddie both got a new personal record. The girls finished second with a time of 1:56! I have never seen a group of girls work as hard as they do. Everyone was rooting for them and they proved to everyone that anything they put their mind to can happen.
I talked with Shannon Smith later that night and asked her what she thought about the meet.
Me: “How did you feel our team did at the meet today, considering we were all sore from the past week’s practice?”
Shannon: “I think we did really well. The girls improved a lot from the meet over winter break. I’m happy with how they did and I think they are too. It was great to see their excitement after they heard the times and I think it’ll encourage them to keep improving!”
Thanks Shannon, and great job girls!
The guys team did not participate in the meet with us. They took the weekend off which was well-needed, because most of them have already qualified for sectionals and are also improving every day. Great job guys!
Our next meet is Saturday, Jan. 14 at Fredonia and we can’t wait to get more qualifying times!
Also, on January 21st and throughout that entire weekend, most of our team, including the guys, will have the great opportunity to participate in the 2012 Yale Track Classic. This meet is attended by the best of the best athletes from all over the New England Area taking place at Coxe Cage which is the Indoor Track at Yale University.
It’s nice to start off the New Year with such great spirit and attitude from the entire team! Keep it up!
Go Quakers!