With targets on its back, Greenwood Track and Field is sizing up to be a formidable opponent throughout the tri-valley league. Last year, the boys’ team was crowned dual meet champion, and the girls’ team was only one win away from being granted the title. New coaches have been appointed to the track team since the former head coach Matthew Adami stepped down. Daniel O’Toole and Brian Brinser inherited the head coach title. O’Toole had formerly been an assistant coach, coaching over the distance runners. New assistant coaches such as Amy Cassel, Matthew Shaffer, and Rachel Shaffer have also joined the Wildcats’ track coaching squad.
After a few weeks of practicing, the Wildcats made their way to the first meet of the season, which happened to be a formidable invitational. The Breslin Invitational at Mount Carmel High School took place on March 28th and featured blistering cold and tough winds throughout the invitational. The track was not gravel but rather an all-weather track, which allowed athletes to perform up to their best ability. Overall, the boys took 11th place out of 16 teams, as the girls took 8th out of 15 teams. Some athletes were able to receive medals, placing within the top 6 requirements to receive one. On the boy’s side, the 4×800 meter relay (Nicholas Stuck, John Taylor, Evan Duffy, Matthew Tubioli) placed 5th overall, and the 4×400 meter relay (Riley Barr, Waid Gainer, John Taylor, Nicholas Stuck) placed 3rd overall. Stuck and Tubioli placed 3rd and 4th in the 800 respectively. Gainer placed 5th in both the 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles consecutively, as in pole vault, Levi Lower placed 5th overall.
On the girl’s side, the 4×800 meter relay (Lauren Sharbaugh, Leah Stuck, Abigail Brightbill, Sarah Tanner) placed 4th overall. In the rest of the running events, Julianna Wise was the only runner able to receive a medal, placing 3rd in the 100-meter dash and 4th in the 200-meter dash. Overall, the meeting was successful in readying the athletes for the rest of the season.
The next meet was held at East Juniata High School on April 10th, the boys and girls team dominated the track and field and were victorious by a landslide victory by over 60 points. Soon after, an invitational at Selinsgrove on April 13th took place. This meet was excruciatingly windy, with immense cold and even harder running. There were a few placements on the podium, but nothing greatly notable.
Another meet transpired at home against Juniata on April 16th, and it was another landslide victory for the Wildcats. Dominating the Juniata team by over 50 points for the boys and 100 points for the girls. After that, a meet held at Big Spring High School on a great all-weather track took place. The meet was against both Big Spring and James Buchanan, with the Wildcats once again being victorious. The boys and girls both won by over 50 points against both teams.
The next invitational was held at Elizabethtown College on April 20th. The track itself was controversial among athletes as it was a different material than the rest of the all-weather outdoor tracks, using a “mondo” material rather than a regular rubber-type track. The weather for the meet however was near perfect for the athletes to compete in and yielded great results for athletes with many PRs and some of the boys and girls placing high on the podium. The boy’s team placed 5th out of 17 teams, as the girls won the meet with 116 points. Coming in 1st place out of 17 teams, securing a trophy.
The next meet held at home against Millersburg High School on April 23rd was a show of how dominant the Wildcats are as a track team. Sweeping many event’s top 3 positions on both the boy’s and girl’s sides, it was an easy meet for the athletes to compete in.
The next few meets all took place at Susquenita High School and were all some of the biggest meets of the entire season. The first of the three was just a dual meet against Susqenita, and the girl’s and boy’s teams took the victory by over 20 points each. The next meet was a big one, the Perry County Tournament (PECO), held on May 6th at Susquenita High School. The meet was intense, with many down-to-the-wire points that needed to be secured in order to win. In the end, the Wildcats were victorious on both the girl’s and boy’s sides. Granting them a cool trophy to take photos with and a plaque engraved on the trophy as well. The next meet was another doozy, the Tri-Valley League meet, held at Susquenita High School on May 8th. This meet was nowhere close point-wise to PECO, leaving the competition in the dust by a decent margin on both sides of the team. Securing yet another trophy for both teams.
The boys and girls went undefeated throughout the regular season and even in the league meets surpassing the regular season. All up until districts the team was completely undefeated and received trophies from the league in doing so. Junior Nathanael Stuck says, “I think the regular season was amazing, with a lot of PRs and a lot of fun.”
