Outdoor track players at their captain's practice. Photo submitted by Leslie Rodriguez.
The weather is getting warmer and daylight savings has begun. This also means that Malden High track players are preparing to jump hurdles and run sprints as the outdoor track season opens. The team is ecstatic after having a successful indoor track season, and have no doubts about what this season will bring for them.
Although the team seems to be losing people to other spring sports, they have also been gaining new people because the winter season is over. Coach Michel-Le Meranda added, “it seems like we have a really young team.”
Meranda is excited to harbor their talent and work with them for the next three to four years. She believes that this season will be significantly better than the last, considering they only had 20 athletes last year.
“This season is the ‘let’s just see what happens’ season,” said Meranda.
Senior Leslie Rodriguez, who is one of the captains, hopes that this year more people can come to the meets as she generally just wants things to be back to normal. Rodriguez wants to communicate with the team whether that be on Google Classroom or Remind to “make sure that they know what they are doing and making sure they’re doing it right.” She also hopes that the students who are not new to the rules of track could teach those that are not familiar with it.
Senior Marcos Ruiz, another captain of the team, feels that some people need support. Some people prefer to be left alone so they can train and he expressed that he should be there to “listen and to help” in understanding that some people on the team may need different needs.
Senior Jelani Garrett, another captain, explained that he is always willing to help anyone on the team. Garrett wants to make sure that “everything is in order and makes sure everyone gets along.” He hopes to help anyone who is having any trouble because the team has “a lot of new people that do not know what they are doing.”
He further wants people to be able to feel comfortable when he is teaching certain steps. They have “a lot of people joining [who] have a lot of energy,” just looking at the current players they have, he expressed that they have a good group of long-distance runners.
“Never a doubt,” is a phrase Ruiz loves to say because as they achieve and strive for the GBL title, everything they do now is going to be successful throughout their season. Ruiz is not expecting any less, in fact, he is pretty confident about how well his team will do this season.
On the other hand, Rodriguez believes that there are doubts anytime when it comes to sports. “Anything can happen really, but I am optimistic, I am staying positive,” she said. Though this is Rodriguez’s last year, she wants to make the most of it and just have fun when doing this sport.
It is important to all of the seniors to have their final best run with their team. Garrett stated, “if we don’t get a lot of people as excited to do track, then over the next few years track might die down.”
The team may be young, however, it does not stop the captains and veterans of the team to teach and help the underclassmen be successful in the coming years.
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