The indoor track 4x800m relay team competed in the Winston Salem state meet Feb 11, finishing in 18th place.

Senior Casey Turro, juniors Sydney Quate, Natalie Mitchell and sophomore Erin Spreen all participated in the meet.

Track coach Patrick Marshall had faced a change in the state meet rules this season.

“My hopes going into the season were to get as many athletes qualified for the state meet that I could. This year the state made the standards a lot more difficult than they were in previous years,” Marshall said. “That kind of affected us this year. I would have liked more students to be qualified, but I was happy with who we had.”

The overall time for the relay was 10:26.41.

“I’m overall satisfied. I felt like we ran really well and improved our time,” Quate said.

As the winter season concludes, it allows an easy transition into spring.

“I’m really happy with how I did, and I’m really excited for my last season of high school,” Turro said.

For Marshall, winter track is about more than just qualifying for the state meet.

“We use the winter as a way to set a foundation for spring. We don’t stress winter as much as some other teams do, but we’re just kind of making it a way to prepare ourselves,” Marshall said. “I think it’s great for those who qualify and get to compete. They get to compete against some great competition, but now we’re also in a great position for spring.”

Spreen also participated in the 1600m as an individual, placing fifth overall.

“My goals for myself were to improve my time, hit my seasons best and improve from last year,” Spreen said.

Quate was positive about her experience at the Winston Salem meet.

“It was really hard. There was a lot of good people out there and they were from all over and just really competitive and fun,” Quate said.

Out of the 21 schools that competed, the fastest team’s time was 9:40.79 seconds.
The Winston Salem location is one of the two indoor facilities we have in the state.

Sophomore Tyler Bland was the alternative runner for the Winston Salem meet, but she never got a chance to run. This has pushed her even more.

“This season there is a lot of competition between our top seven runners, so basically we’re just gonna have to train hard and we’re gonna be really close fighting for a spot on the 4×8 relay this year,” Bland said. “Hopefully, we’ll get a qualifying time for regionals because last year we made it to regionals but missed states by one place. Hopefully with the tight competition within our team this will push us to make it to regionals again.”