Track team improves individual skills
After rigorous training over spring break and the past week, some of the Mt. Hood track and field athletes hard work is starting to pay off. In last weekend’s Willamette Invite, several athletes set personal records (PRs). Alex Boyles ran a lifetime personal record for the 5000m in a time of 16:38. Alejandro Dominquez-Morales ran 16:22. “They listened to the race strategy and they were more consistent. What they’ve done in the past is they blow out and try to kill the first lap. They try to compete, which is good, but you also have to be smart when you compete,” said head coach Matt Hart. “They stuck to the game plan.” Brice Johnson and Hannah Gustafson both threw well in the javelin. All three of Gustafson’s attempts were over 100 ft. Hart said she is on the verge of popping out a substantial PR. According to Hart, the javelin people are just learning technique right now, but as they start to get more and more comfortable with the form and technique, then they’ll start making it more of an art form. “They can start expressing themselves through the javelin which, ultimately, will improve their marks,” said Hart. Levi Pienovi has been running 11.7 seconds in the 100m all season; this last meet he ran 11.59 seconds. Rolando Cruz PR’d in the 800m; he’s eight-hundredths of a second from getting below two minutes. “He’s probably going to do that this season,” said Hart. Franky Preciado PR’d in the 400m and, according to Hart, is on the verge making another breakthrough. Matt Lariza, placed second in the triple jump, which is both a good and a bad thing. He only had four attempts in each field event, he scratched three of the four attempts, but the one he did land was a 43’5”. “That shows a lot of promise. Ideally, you want to make a mark, make adjustments, improve the mark even more, and then on the last attempt, you make all these adjustments and pop out the big one at the end,” said Hart. “Scratching is inevitable, it happens all the time, but ideally we want to have a progression in the series. A series being, in this case, four jumps.” Jeremiah Drelleshak PR’d 44’9” in the shot put, even though he placed seventh. He was only 13 inches away from getting fourth. He also threw 150’7” in the hammer, marking his third time hitting over 150; his season PR is 155’4”. “He’s consistently thrown 150’s, but in training he’s already reported that he’s made some corrections and he feels a lot more speed going into his throws, so I’m anxious to see how he throws this weekend,” said Hart. Ashley Mulvaney has done almost any event that she could’ve done: distances, hurdles and sprints. “She’s a warrior,” said Hart. Angela Scott has been jumping consistently with what she’s been doing in the long jumps and the triple jumps. Hart feels that the athletes are still getting comfortable with the system. “Practices have not been continuous. It’s been a challenging year as a team, but this year I’m not really looking at it as a team effort, it’s just a bunch of individuals out there and I want to see these individuals improve, and that’s it,” said Hart. On Saturday the track and field team will host the Mt. Hood Invite, a meet that was put together after Clackamas cancelled their scheduled meet that they have been doing for over 12 years. “This is just a small meet. It doesn’t matter what meet we’re having right now. Our next phase of training is what we’re really focused on. And we’re doing more skill development, more technique, more fine tuning of what we do have and we’re still trying to infuse some conditioning in there while we’re integrating other components that are needed for training, so we’re a little behind on conditioning,” said Hart. “We’re just going to do the best we can at this meet, which is what we do at every meet.”
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