Image From Arjun Mathur, Caption: Tak Fudenna Stadium during MVAL Center Meet 1B.
The spring season for sports has officially begun, marking the start of baseball, lacrosse, track & field, and more. The Washington track & field team is ready to start the new season strong, with hopes of moving on to championships. With a new head coach leading the way, the Huskies are prepared to excel.
Marcus Taper, the new head coach, is at the helm of the track & field management team. With a total of five coaches, the coaches manage over 160 student athletes, all of whom compete in different events. Although the team is quite large, the coaching and drills are precise, effective, and intense, and despite the size of the team, each person is able to practice strategically, bettering themselves as an individual and as a larger unit. Freshman Vishwas Bhati commented, “The training is helping. Sprinting drills and workouts are making me faster, and my starts are improving.” He also suggested a way to improve practice, saying he would like “more practice races to prepare for meets.”
Bhati, who is participating in the 100-meter dash and long jump, further elaborated on how he felt about the team in general. “I feel excited to be on the team,” he says. “It’s a good chance to get faster and compete. The team is supportive, and everyone encourages each other, which makes practice and meets more fun.”
New head coach Taper shared his ambitions for this season. “I feel like we have a good team,” he said. “If everyone keeps working hard and putting in the effort, I think we can actually do something this year and probably shock a lot of people. I wasn’t here the last few years, but I was here last year and I felt like our team could’ve been a whole lot better than what it was as far as the coaching, the attitude, the culture, and just overall effort. But hopefully this year I’ll be able to change that and have everybody competing at their best, highest level. And hopefully we can compete in championships and have individual champions.”
Although Coach Taper has high hopes, he isn’t feeling stressed. He laughed at the suggestion that he had apprehensions: “My only apprehension is getting the uniforms in on time. Other than that, I have no apprehensions. I’m going to try and keep it loose, and I’m hoping everyone is smiling, having a good time. Other than that, I have no reservations or apprehensions. I just hope that everybody comes out and competes, and I hope that everyone has a good time doing it.”
Keeping these sentiments in mind, the track team is looking forward to a great season. The first MVAL center meet has already been completed. Its first half was at James Logan High School on March 5th and its second half at Washington on March 11, with Huskies performing tremendously well in all events at the meet. Some standout performances came from Grayson Leday, with a time of approximately 52 or 53 seconds for one lap in the boys 4×400 relay; Evan Alexander, with a time of 1 minute 59 seconds in the boys 800-meter run, the fastest out of everyone at the meet; and Henry Severson, with a mark of 8 feet 6 inches in the boys pole vault, the highest jump of everyone in the meet. All the Huskies are feeling prepared to leave the competition in the dust as they hopefully head to championships!
Arjun Mathur is a freshman at Washington High School. He was born in Fremont and has lived here for his whole life. This is his first year at the Hatchet, and he’s interested in writing an opinions column or writing about the arts and life in Fremont. In his spare time, Arjun enjoys reading books, writing essays, watching YouTube, playing video games, talking to his friends, and listening to music. In the future, he wants to go to college, and become a history teacher or do something in psychology.