By Devin Prasad
Executive Sports Editor 

The girls’ track and field team competed in the conference meet Friday, May 9 at Wheeling High School.  The team placed second overall, beating third place Palatine by a narrow margin of 1.5 points and losing to 1st place Barrington by only 2.5 points.

The team had six girls win their events. Junior Catherine Sherwood placed first in the long jump and triple jump while sophomore Jes Skudlarek won the high jump. Sophomore Maya Mason won the high hurdles. Senior Christina Santiago placed first in the 800 meter and freshman Brooke Wilson won the 3200 meter.

Being a freshman, Wilson worked hard to be able to compete with the upperclassmen.

“It’s daunting because there are a lot of good seniors and juniors, but my older teammates help me,” Wilson said.  “I just go out there and go for it.”

While it was a big day for the team as a whole, this meet was a special for head coach David Wurster: it was the last time his team would compete in a conference meet.

After the prelims and before the finals of the meet there was a presentation held for him.  For him, the whole thing was a small distraction. People came up to him to shake his hand and say thank you at various times throughout the meet. According to Wurster, he just wanted to do what got him there in the first place: coach.

“I’m not about getting recognized,” Wurster said. “I want my team to get recognized, not me.”

Looking forward to the sectional meet Thursday, May 15, the team feels they are prepared for the high intensity atmosphere the sectional meet will bring. The team ran nearly all the girls in the events they will be in in the sectional meet during the conference meet.

Overall, Wurster felt it was important to coach through the distractions.

“I wanted to win,” Wurster said. “I wanted our kids to perform great so that’s how I coached it.”