In its second league meet of the year, the Palo Alto High School boys’ varsity track team lost to the Mountain View Spartans, 71-60.
Although several runners set personal records, or PRs, the team as a whole did not perform well.
According to senior captain Skyler Cummins, the hot and windy weather slowed down runners. Also, two Paly runners’ blocks slipped.
“It was disappointing not winning, but Mountain View is a good team,” junior runner Andrew Stober said.
Junior runner Henry Jordan was also disappointed by Paly’s loss, but satisfied with his time.
“I got second in the 1600[-meter run] with a time of 4:43, which is a little ways off my PR, but overall, it was a slow day and I’m happy with how I did,” Jordan said.
Several other runners set PRs. Among them were Stober, who placed fourth in the 1600-meter run at 5:00.21, and sophomore Lance Cummins, who finished the 3200-meter run in 11:22.
“I was shooting for 4:55, but without doing substantial speed work yet, I guess I’m satisfied with my time,” Stober said. “This was only the second meet of the season.”
This early in the season, the track team is still pulling itself together.
“Right now as a team we’re a little inconsistent,” Skyler Cummins said. “There are still a couple guys who haven’t figured out what event they run best or just haven’t gotten themselves back into a racing state of mind.”
Junior sprinter Daniel Jones thinks that the team needs more motivation.
“We had a few no-shows at the meet,” Jones said. “The one thing the varsity boys’ team needs to learn is that we’re not invincible. We need to show up where we need to be, on time, and try as hard as possible, even if we think we’re going to lose.”
Cummins agrees that the team needs to change its attitude.
“We need to get a little more competitive; we’re all over the place,” Cummins said. “We need to tighten things up and we need to really want to win.”
The next meet will be against Monta Vista at 3 p.m. on April 1 at Paly.