Midway through March, the track team was prepared to kick off their season with their first scrimmage at home, but unfortunately they were rained out. The next week, the team went to Central Valley for their first scrimmage against both Central Valley and South Side. They were met with more rain, but not enough to keep the athletes from running, jumping and throwing. The team had to power through the rain and cold, and many were wet and tired by the end of it.
Conditioning began in February, and according to Junior Travis Hryckowian, conditioning has become taxing.
“[Conditioning] started out easy, but it’s definitely working its way up; we are doing a good job of preparing ourselves for the season,” Hryckowian said.
Hryckowian was excited to get back into the swing of things with track because he enjoys it and wants to get back into shape. The team has recently begun having actual practices instead of just the conditioning that they started out with.
At the end of last year, Freedom’s track program had to say goodbye to some very fierce senior competitors who graduated. This year, the team consists of around 30 members, which may seem like a high number, but in reality it is not.
“The middle school team has about 50 members, and that seems to be pretty average, so we do have sort of a smaller team,” Freshman Joey Pail said.
At their first scrimmage, even though it was his first time ever running the 100 meter, Pail came in third place. He felt good but wasn’t very confident. “You know, I was pretty nervous. It was the first race, and I had to get the butterflies out,” Pail said.
Despite the rain and the somewhat small team, both Pail and Hryckowian are happy with the team’s accomplishments. “For what we have, we are doing pretty well,” Hryckowian said. They hope to see the team perform well this season and believe that they have the talent and dedication to do just that.