With the completion of Lowell’s new track, Lowell track and field hosted its first meet at home since 1990 on March 8 against the Lick-Wilmerding Tigers and Burton Pumas.
Last fall, Lowell track and field finally got their own eight lane all-weather track. “I remember my freshman year, they told us we were going to have a track by sophomore year,” senior distance runner Will Fuchs said. “Sophomore year they told us by junior year. My junior year we finally fundraised for the track at the pizza run, and now we have a track.”
The uneven dirt track caused many injuries and was inconvenient for runners during practice. “The dirt track was awful,” Fuchs said. “You take a step forward and your foot would slip backwards. I fell a couple times running it before. There’s like big rocks and pine cones that you had to watch out for.”
Teams visiting to compete against Lowell were also affected. “Visiting teams were even saying that their shins were hurting after running our track,” head coach Andy Leong said.
With the new track, practice has become more efficient. The team no longer needs to travel to other high schools’ tracks for practice or spend extra time measuring hurdle marks. “We had to share the track because a lot of times we go to Lincoln or SOTA and we cram into one or two lanes,” Fuchs said. “Now we can run the workouts like how Andy wants us to.”
Many track members are also happy that they don’t have to worry about transportation. “We would end at around 7:30 p.m. but now we start practice earlier and end practice earlier,” senior sprinter and jumper Dion Chung said. “It’s nice to not have to worry about any bus situations and transportation.”
In the meet on March 8 the Cardinals placed first in multiple events. Senior Mikolaj Krajewski took first in the 3,200m event with a time of 10:13.56 . In the varsity boys’ 1,600m event, junior Maximillion Tiao placed first with a time of 4:49.92. For varsity boys’ 100m event, senior William Mai took first with a time of 11.46. For varsity boys’ and girls’ 800m event, seniors Runjia Chen and Sierra Brill placed first with times of 2:10.97 and 2:21.01, respectively. In the girls’ 300m hurdles, sophomore Zinnia Fin took first with a time of 54.47. For the girls’ 200m event, sophomore Kathleen Mai placed first 27.69.
Runners were excited to run at home for their first time. “It feels like you are running for something else because you actually have like a home and a place to defend,” Fuchs said. “We’ve never had a home meet before and it’s motivational to be part of something like that.”
The track team’s next meet will be on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at Washington High School against the Wallenberg Bulldogs.
