By Gabriel Ouzounian
Review Co-Editor
It’s rare that losing athletes helps a team and for the Lake Orion Girls Track team, the lose proved too much.
Despite a number of strong performances and many broken personal bests, the girls finished in eleventh place out of 16 teams at the regional meet on May 18. Still, Assistant Coach Debi McDonald said the team is simply going through a growing stage right now.
‘The throwers all threw a personal best and then (sophomore) pole vaulter Madeleine Martindale cleared the qualifying height of 9?8? for states,? said McDonald. ‘We had a lot of improvement from all our freshmen and it’s good to see the strong effort so we can see what our future will look like. The key is going to be putting in the work in the off season and just making sure recruitment is up.?
McDonald had mentioned earlier in the season that recruitment was one of the challenges to overcome with Track and Field. In comparison to Cross Country, which happens in the fall, soccer and lacrosse tend to be a bigger draw to the runners. This mean while the Cross Country team may be large, much talent is lost to other sports during Track season
As far as the team’s age, McDonald said it was encouraging to see the younger team members breaking their records, even late in the season.
The season is not quite over for the girls, however, as they have a county meet this Friday in Holly where a few girls managed to qualify.
The state meet is in East Kentwood on June 2.