By Paul Evers, sports editor
Head Coach Pete Wintermute said the day started off strong with performances on the field. Brenda Kendziera and Autumn Stone took second and third place respectively in the triple jump. Wintermute stressed that Kendziera and Stone weren’t even triple jumpers last season, but still had impressive performances at conference.
The team of Anne Walsh, Samantha Berman, Jes Skudlarek and Maya Mason set a school record of 48.19 seconds in the 4x100m relay. Mason also set a record in the 100m high hurdles, running it in 14.61 seconds. Molly Leeney also placed 4th in the 3200m race.
“If you would’ve told me [Leeney] would be running the 3200 at the start of the season, I would’ve probably laughed,” Wintermute said. “That’s another kid who has just come through and gone from being a kid on the team to all of a sudden she’s a varsity contributor and scored five points for us.”
Wintermute said that the key to the conference meet was treating it just like any other meet.
“Yes, it’s a big day and you want to be at your best, but it’s about rolling with the emotions of the day,” Wintermute said. “It’s about fighting for those [personal records] and if you don’t have one, then you have to bounce back and be ready to go in the next event.”
Wintermute also found it important to coach the same way he always does. He also made sure not focus on the fact that Prospect were heavy favorites, being expected to win by as many as 20 to 30 points.
“I don’t talk about that stuff, because at the end of the day nobody cares what’s written on paper,” Wintermute said. “You have to do it on that day. That’s the idea of sports, it’s about the competition on that one single day.”
Looking forward to sectionals, Wintermute’s goal for the team is to get as many people qualified for state. At the same time, he wants to treat the sectional meet just like any other meet once again.
“To me, it’s another meet. It doesn’t matter if you’ve hit state qualifiers in the past [and] it doesn’t matter if you won conference,” Wintermute said. “You’re going back to square one, and we’ve got to be able to perform when it’s time to perform.”
Wintermute also said that he will be trying to keep his team focused during the sectional meet.
“We’re going to try to keep the mood light and keep the kids engaged and focused on what they’ve got to do,” Wintermute said. We like to focus on the process. If you got a process and you follow through on that process, great things happen.”