The boys’ track and field team looks to be in good preparation for the season after several impressive performances in the annual intrasquad meet on Thursday.
The underclassmen raced particularly well, demonstrating this team’s potential to defend its two-year title as league champion.
Before the meet even started, several distance boys began with a 3,200-meter workout on the track. Senior Skyler Cummins and junior Philip MacQuitty led the pack with a 5 minute, 21 seconds split at the mile, and Cummins eventually recorded the fastest 3,200-meter split of the evening. Instead of finishing there, however, he continued running for a third mile for an overall time of 16:04. For this early in the season, Cummins was excited about his performance and found the effort very rewarding.
“I was expecting for it to go well,” Cummins said. “It was basically what I was expecting, and it was a good thing.”
About twenty minutes later, in the first race of the evening, Skyler’s brother, sophomore Lance Cummins, won the mile at 5:15.
“It was a 17 second P.R. [personal record],” Lance Cummins said. “I felt pretty good for the first three laps. I was surprised at how easy it felt. Then in the last lap I sped up a lot and that hurt.”
He is satisfied with his time as a baseline, but he does hope to eventually break five minutes.
In the hurdles race, junior Dustin Na won in 10.89 seconds.
In the closely contested 100-meter race, senior Kasey Fields narrowly won at 11.52 seconds. Senior Paul Brown finished second in 11.54 seconds, but many spectators claim that Brown actually crossed the finished first. Nonetheless, the timers made the final call.
Among the less experienced runners, freshman Brian Benton posted the fastest time in the 100-meter at 12.21 seconds, while freshman Rashid Syverain won his heat with 12.35.
“It felt pretty good,” Syverain said. “I just want to keep getting better.”
Freshman Isreal Hakim dominated the 400-meter race, crossing the finish line in 58.2 seconds.
“I felt good after racing,” Hakim said. “I think I could do better. I’m going to keep trying until I can’t try anymore.”
In the 800-meter, junior Alex Voet won in 2:09, followed closely by senior Jay Nguyen in 2:10.
In the field events, senior Steven Gargiulo won the high jump, clearing 5 feet, 6 inches. Senior Frank Wan triumphed in the long jump with 19-7 jump. Junior Haris Sultani threw 37-2 to win the shot put.
The boys were originally divided into a green team and a white team, but head coach Jason Fung decided to abandon the scoring system to avoid unnecessary confusion.
The boys will compete in their first official meet at 3 p.m. on Thursday, March 12, against Los Altos High School at the Paly track.
Editor’s Note, March 9, 2009: The original version of this story stated that freshman Rashid Syverain posted the fastest time of the less-experienced 100-meter runners at 12.21 seconds. However, Syverain was the fastest only in his heat, while freshman Brian Benton, who ran in a different heat than Syverain, was the fastest overall of the less experienced 100-meter runners, finishing at 12.35 seconds. The current version of the story reflects this change.