Naperville Central’s girls track and field team placed second at the DuPage Valley Conference Championship on March 20 with 122 points, breaking two DVC records and six school records in the process. Neuqua Valley placed first overall at the meet with 139.5 points.
“I felt like our performance was outstanding,” head coach Phil Allen said. “Our girls [were] ready to compete and competed hard. I do feel we fell short of our team goal of winning our third straight indoor conference championship, but the way we performed was outstanding.”
The team had to deal with a significant loss of leading seniors from last year’s team.
“The seniors last year were definitely the best group of seniors I’ve ever seen on [the] team,” senior Lola Satre-Morales said. “They inspired a lot of hard work and also earned points [for the team], but I think the seniors this year have all been doing their best as well, [and] I think we’ve had a lot of improvement pushing our way through that.”
The team has also experienced significant coaching changes this season.
“It’s not that any of the coaches are doing bad or anything, it’s just a bit difficult because we’ve had different hurdles, jumps, [and] pole vault coaches, and for more technical events like that, changing coaches a lot can be difficult for the athletes,” Satre-Morales said. “I think that we have had a really good staff each year, just adjusting to the changes [can be difficult] for the athlete.”
One area where the team has excelled is in their relays, with Satre-Morales’ team breaking the school’s 4×400 record twice and two other groups breaking the 4×200 record three times.
“[Breaking the school record] was really cool, because it was completely out of the blue,” Satre-Morales said. “We never thought you [could] just put together a lineup, and all of a sudden, we were watching the clock tick down, and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, that time was the school record.’”
The team plans to continue fostering a strong team culture in the outdoor season.
“I want to continue to make sure we have a lot of fun [with] what we’re doing and having theme days, fun activity Fridays [as] we call it, team dinners, pasta parties, and just continuing to celebrate [athletes’] hard work and success,” Allen said.