Athletes from both Elphi and Chat Secondary Schools are lacing up their shoes in preparation for the start of another high school track and field season.
Elphi has a team of 25 this year and began practices in early March.
The squad practises three nights a week, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Coach Tom Daniels is being assisted this year by Larry Nightingale, who is working with the long distance runners, Kree Girard, a former Elphi student, who is working twice a week with the team, and Tanzi Hoover and Jen Goertzen, who are both assisting once a week with sprinters and high jumpers.
Last Thursday Elphi attended an exhibition meet in West Vancouver and took part in a throwing meet (javelin, discus, shot put) on Tuesday.
"It's a young group, primarily Grades 8 to 10, but we look very strong," said Daniels. "I feel we have a lot of promising athletes. I've had the chance to work with a lot of them over the past couple years and they've all received excellent coaching at the elementary school level. We're looking forward to a solid year."
Being that it's still early in the season, Daniels said it was tough to make too many predictions, but he did point out a few early hopefuls.
"One of our female sprinters, Brianna Kane, went to Florida during spring break with a club team from Vancouver. She ran a 58.7 400 m that would put her among the top 400 m runners in the province," Daniels said. "Our relay teams will be strong again. Last year our Grade 9/10 team finished fourth overall. Our team goals are to qualify as many as we can for the provincials."
This weekend, Elphi is off to Bear Creek Park in Surrey for a Simon Fraser meet, which will encompass all the events, including throwing, running and relays.
Daniels expects the meet to be a good test to see where the team is before heading into North Shore league action next month.At Chatelech, Lexa Pomfret and her team of about 20 athletes are also busy preparing for the season.
Chat's team is also young, made up of more juniors than seniors, and they're "an enthusiastic bunch," according to Pomfret.
"Last year was our first real push back into track and field at the school," Pomfret said. "We're young and we have a lot of Grade 9 and 10 athletes. This year our focus is trying to continue to build our team."
Chat started conditioning sessions in late February and full practices in March, training three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Derek Apple and Mark Heidebrecht are assisting Pomfret this year.
Chat has attended one exhibition meet on the North Shore, the Grade 8s went to a fun meet last week at Simon Fraser University, and they also attended the throwing meet on Tuesday with Elphi.
Athletes to keep an eye on include sprinters Madalyn Reid and Wendee Lang and Herb Browning and Caterina Calonna in the throwing events.
"All these athletes have made strong progress," Pomfret said. "The team is working hard and we hope to compete and have fun. If we can qualify some athletes for provincials, that would be a bonus."
