By Jack Ankony, sports editor
It wasn’t a huge surprise to senior Brenda Kendziera that the girls’ track team won the conference meet at North Central college. According to Kendziera, she knew throughout the meet that they were winning, but this did not hold back her enthusiasm for the team.
“[Winning the MSL] was really exciting,” Kendziera said. “What made it so cool was that both the boys and girls teams won so we basically walked out of the meet thinking ‘We totally dominated the conference.’”
At the conference meet, Kendziera broke the Prospect indoor record for long jump with a score of 17.7. Later, Kendziera won the hurdles event too. Also contributing the girls’ success was junior Autumn Stone who won pole vault and senior Jessica Skudlarek who won the high jump.
On the boys’ side, Senior Karson Lecomte won the boys’ individual 1600 meter race after being seeded third going into it.
Alongside his relay team of senior Luke Filipic, senior Matt Cozine, and Senior Teddy Eckhardt, Lecomte ran a 50.7 in his leg of the relay in the anchor role to secure the victory in this event.
“Winning an individual event is cool,” Lecomte said. “But winning the last event of the day coming down to the wire with my teammates [in the relay] was my favorite moment of the whole indoor season.”
Boys’ head coach Frank Mirandola is proud of how the team continues to develop depth throughout the entire team. Mirandola believes winning the MSL helps reinforce the hardwork they put in on a daily basis.
For the boys, this was the third time they have won the MSL indoor conference title, the other times being in 2009 and 2011.
“Overall, our numbers kept improving which is really the benchmark for our season,” Mirandola said. “The more you improve, the more you continue to grow, the better off you will be for the end of the year when it really counts the most.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Burmeister believes that the indoor season has showed him that the team has talent and if they continue to work hard it will pay off in the outdoor season.
“We had a successful indoor season in terms of breaking records,” Burmeister said. “So that gives the girls a lot of confidence to be successful and to continue to break records as the season goes on.”
In the end, winning the MSL indoor conference title has no implications on the outdoor season, but Mirandola believes that potentially this means they can be a very good team.
“If they continue to work, continue to treat everyday like it’s essential for success, every practice like it’s essential for our collective good, then I think good things are ahead of us,” Mirandola said. “Its a matter of staying focused on the process of sustaining excellence to ultimately qualify guys to go down to state, which is a huge goal of ours.”