Girls Outdoor Track 2023

As the year flips to its final chapter of the sports seasons, the track team is back to the moment they’ve all been waiting for; the City Championships. Hoping to bounce back from the tough loss in the 22’-23’ Indoor City Championships, the girls’ outdoor track team continues with the fierce and rigorous coaching of Latoya Johnson. 

But first, how is this season’s team different, you may ask? Simply put, “I think it’s the largest it’s ever been, now”, states Kei Leigh Mese-Jones, a junior and runner of the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. However, on the negative end, “…a lot of people are injured. Like half of our team…”, states freshman, Adelaide “Addie” McMurray, who runs the 1600m and the 3200m. As said before, running is almost purely mental, and as Championships creep closer, this can be a hard hurdle to jump. A recurring theme in athletes of this team was how mental the sport can be and the difficulty it creates when running. Freshman, Steysi Imbert-Sandoval, multi of the team, affirms that; “ [It’s] something that mostly troubles me- when I’m in my head- a lot. Because I know that I’m capable of doing it.” The team has also persisted through meets like the major relay meet: Penn Relays. Among the Baltimore City teams, Western dominated at the Penn Relays, leaving Poly dumbstruck.

But how will the team power through these challenges? 

One word: culture. The culture of the team is ever so supporting of one another. “I think track has a very good community because everyone has their own thing that they’re good at and everyone can be very supportive of each other. It’s not like you’re competing against each other on the team…and I think it’s just very enjoyable to be on a team, like representing our school, and just trying our best in everything we do”, says Kei Leigh. 

This year has also seen the team find new arrivals that would carry the team’s stats forward and help overcome the rocky start of this outdoor season. As Adelaide gleefully states; “I see progress from EVERYONE, everyone’s PR’d, everyone’s tried their best, everyone’s made friends, I think that sometimes it can be rough, and everyone gets burnt out when doing a sport 5-6 days a week, but no one’s really letting it get to them, everyone’s pushing themselves really hard, and I think everyone’s made a lot of friends and a lot of good memories!” Senior Jamaya Mcdowell, shot putter and discus thrower states that, “…now that it’s championships we’re really starting to come along, but at the beginning of the season we had kind of a hard time getting into the workflow. But once we started seeing our competition, people started picking up their slack.” Finally, Kei Leigh adds that; “[The team] has gotten more serious during the meets. Like the first meets, coach was a bit frustrated with us because we weren’t being that serious, but the past few meets have been better, because we’ve been more focused and trying our best.” 

And as the infamous Usain Bolt stated, “There are better starters than me but I’m a strong finisher”…

… As will be the case with the girls’ outdoor track team.