The crowd roars as junior Christine Mallard steps into her block. Blocking out all the noise around, waiting, listening to the sound of her own breathing as she waits for the gun. In a matter of a second, she has goals racing through her mind.
“I knew going into state that I had to be focused,” Mallard said, “but it felt great to qualify considering that I worked really hard and that it was all coming to an end.”
This is Mallard’s second year to attend the UIL 5A state championship. She qualified for the 100 and 200-meter dash. Mallard placed sixth for the 100-meter dash and took second in the 200-meter dash.
“During my 100M race I wasn’t as focused as I should’ve been, so unfortunately I didn’t perform well. However I didn’t want that to affect my 200M so I regained my focus,” Mallard said. “All that was going through my mind was to leave everything on the track.”
Alongside Mallard, sophomore Ava Crisafulli qualified individually for the 1600 meters. On the day of the meet, Crisafulli did not allow the nerves to get to her. Placing Seventh overall, Crisafulli ran a personal best time of 5:10.57.
“Qualifying for state has been my goal for the whole season so when I qualified it felt like all the hard work paid off,” Crisafulli said. “I had to trust the process/training and continue to do the small things to keep myself from burning out.”
On the boy’s side of the team, junior Jabari Mitchell qualified individually in the 800 meters and with his fellow teammates junior Ty cook, junior Kannon Hebert and senior Jalen Jackson in the 4×4 relay race. Mitchell placed fourth overall in the 800-meter. The relay team placed sixth overall.
“The energy of the meet was like no other I felt before, over two thousand people in the stands and thousands of people watching from home, the atmosphere definitely gave me a boost to really give it my all,” Mitchell said.
Coach Lindsey feels proud of his athletes and their accomplishments. He believes every athlete wishes they did better, but there is not one athlete who didn’t greatly improve this track season.
“The athletes prepared by working hard every day. They had good competition all year which put them in a position to succeed in big meets,” Linsey said. “Next season they will build off their improvements from this season. They will be older and are able to handle more intense workouts with ease based off their times from this season.”
Regardless of the year, the athletes had to face this season, they overcame the hardships and competed with all of their hearts. They set big goals for the season to come.
“My goals for next year would be to win state. It’s just a stepping stone each time I go, so for this last year I want to be able to win as the athlete that I know I’m capable of becoming.” Mallard said.
