Blake Indoor Track Completes Successful Season

-Junior Noelani Phillips crossing the finish Line to Become county Champion in the 300 Title (Photo Courtesy of MileSplit MD)

The Blake Indoor Track Team had a very successful season full of individual player improvement and records broken during Brandon Tynes fifth year as coach.

There were so many accomplishments reached this season. This season was the first year in Blake track history that both the full Girls and Boys teams qualified for the State meet. They also placed high in many events at counties and many other meets.

Serena Harrison accelerated towards the finish line braking the 500 Meter record for Blake finishing with a time of 1:15. Harrison also contributed to the girls winning the 4x2 where they broke the school's record as well.

Senior Elias Boussouf had his best indoor track season .hurdling, to qualify for his first state meet. Overall the team had so many outstanding results at their meets.

Track is a sport that can affect you mentally. The team needs to prepare themselves not just physically, but mentally before meets as well. Noelani Phillips believes “You need to maintain your brain because track is really a mental sport.”

“We have a pep talk. We talk about what we are actually going to do. We say, we are going to run 34 seconds in the 300 and we believe that we are going to run that. Those pep talks help get our minds right so we can execute at meets,” Phillips' brother Nathan Phillips added

Not only does the team prepare well for meets, they also have excellent team chemistry which helps when they are competing at meets. “...I’m thankful because we have a great bonding team. The girls, the guys always hang out together. They are going to the movies together. They are hanging out on the weekend together and that chemistry really helps on the track… Track meets can range from three to four hours to 10 to 12 hours, so the chemistry and getting along is important,” Coach Tynes says.

One of Nathan Phillips’s favorite bonding activities that the team did was see the movie Race, about famous track star Jesse Owens.

When the actual meets come around, the team is fully ready to compete. The team is very supportive of each other during the actual meet itself too. “I think that I’m a pretty good supporter of my teammates. I like cheering for them and I think that it helps them push harder. I like motivating people because it makes me feel good and makes them feel good at the same time,” Harrison said.

Although both the boys and girls teams qualified for States, the size of Blake's team compared to others in the county makes it difficult to place high.at States “Once we get to postmeets, we don’t have a lot of people, so we aren’t able to score as high as we would like to when we get the championship. We just need more bodies for our championship seasons,” Tynes said.

Regardless of size issue, the Bengals were still able to perform excellently in their postseason meets.

The indoor track season is over, but majority of the team will be running outdoor track this spring, as well as run indoor track next year. Congratulations on an exceptional season Bengal Indoor Track.