The track team practiced every day since coming back from winter break. Challenging themselves to succeed in their first meet Feb. 7, at Hanks High School against Young Women’s Leadership Academy, Bel Air, Ysleta, Riverside, Parkland, Franklin, Coronado, Tornillo, and Anthony High Schools.

The coaches and athletes have many goals this season and are changing things this time around with returning and new athletes.

“We have 108 (students) and 61 returning this year,” head coach Corrina Marrufo said. “My goal is to take more regional qualifiers than we did last year, we’re really focusing more on quality versus quantity so we are taking the athletes that we do have and just really working one-on-one with them to get them to be a better athlete.”

The athletes are determined.

“The first goal for everyone is improving each athlete’s abilities so they can perform better and be a better athlete over all,” track captain Irvin Lopez said. “We’re trying to help improve every athlete on the team but we’re trying to score all points for district and hopefully advance to regionals and aim for state.”

The team is working to improve with each each day in practice.

“The people that show up are doing their best. We’re performing better than we thought we would and picking up basically where we left off,” Lopez said. 

Other athletes feel the same way.

“The team is a little more mature and they are trying now instead of being lazy,” junior Jessie Wallace said.

The team has been working non-stop since the school year began.

“There are times where we go to the Student Activities Center (SAC) to run hills there and we do hit the weight room a lot. Our athletes (may look) slimmer but they’re very strong,” Marrufo said. “We practice year-round and we don’t take anytime off.”