Track and Field performs outstanding at Virginia Beach Relay

By: Evan Sprung

January 26, 2024

Colgan track has gone through various changes in the past year including a new coach for the sprinting side of the team but the team went down to Virginia Beach and competed in the Virginia Beach relays on January 6th.

     The team performed great, they showed even without some of their runners from last year like Darryl Byrd or Hayden Hauser who both graduated last year. The team showed tremendous effort and performance a few examples being Junior Sean O’Loughlin came in second for the 1000m,  Senior Garret Connor broke his personal record in Shotput, and set numerous school records in the event Aswell.  On the other hand, the sprinters were rapid-firing personal record runners such as Lauryn Robertson 10th ran a 7.80 60-meter dash coming in second, and Sophmore Joshua Yambo ran a 38.74 300-meter dash setting a new personal record.

     With the track being short, it would be difficult to blame the runners for being confused but the actual running itself must have been difficult especially with a bar separating the infield from the track, being a tripping hazard for runners and the turns being tighter. Runners found themselves having to adjust to the smaller track.

  ” {It was} kind of a shock going from only ever having raced outside the environment was all new and very clearly apparent to me that I was going to have to adapt to racing on a smaller track.” said O’Loughlin.

  And adapt he did as he came in second in the 1000m race, proving that in sports you get out what you put in. 

     With the track being smaller, it was confusing for runners who are used to running on a normal 400-meter track and with it being only 200 meters the laps for long-distance events like the mile were doubled. For example, Freshman Jackson Smith were confused during the mile and stopped at the 1400-meter mark on accident and had to rejoin with one lap left. Especially with sprinting events with the straights only being 50 meters, how was it different for them to run the events. 

“I wouldn’t say it was easy to adjust to but as we ran on it more and more, I got more adjusted to it.” Sophmore Gabriel Anderson said.

     With the struggles of the track being different from your average track, O’Loughlin had quite the time when running on the track, 

     “As soon as I got out there, it was crazy.  I felt like I was flying through the turns because they were banked but with them being tighter I was tripping constantly on the bar separating the track and the infield.”  

     All in all, the meet in and of itself was a success for Colgan having all the individual athletes put on display the work they put in to get to run in the invitational. And even with the new environment and it being the first time runners had run on the track this year they found a way to push through and perform for.