Track and eld team begins season undefeated

By Eden C onner

e girls and boys track and eld team started their season 3-0 with wins against Sierra Canyon School and Marlborough School in a dual meet, followed by wins versus Chaminade High School and Alemany High School March 9 and 16, respectively.

e girls team beat Chaminade 83-40 and the boys won 87-30. Against Alemany, the girls won 88-25 and the boys 85-40.

In the meet versus Chaminade School, long-distance runner Saisha Kumar ’25 took rst place in the mile and Phoebe Hsu ’24 won the two-mile. Long distance runner Nuzzy Sykes ’24 came rst in the 800 and mile, tying Leo Craig ’24 in the two-mile.

Sykes said he had to shift his strategy from running distance in cross country to running track.

“In some races the strategy is as simple as nd someone who is racing the time you want to race and just hold on for dear life,” Sykes said. “In races when you’re working on a tactic of it, if you know your opponent is more of a sprinter than a distance runner you can take them out fast in the beginning and since they can’t hold on later in the race they’ll fall o and you can take the lead.” e squad had a number of rst-place nishes across the eld events. Jesse Goldman ’23 threw a 52-10 in shot put, which put him in rst place in the event and met the MileSplit US Second Team Standard. e boys and girls teams won their high jump events with Pierce Neirick ’25 and Aidan Usher ’26 tying for rst in the boys high jump and Charlotte Hogan ’24 winning on the girls side. Arize Nwike ’23 and Camille Weinstein ’24 won their respective triple jump events and Danny Tan-Goldhammer ’23 and Jessica ompson ’23 won their long jump events. e sprint group had multiple rst place nishes, with Benson Fleisher ’23 and ompson winning the boys and girls 200 meter dash. Rasak Ayeni ’23 placed rst in the 400 meter dash and was joined by Fleisher, Usher and Mason Walline ’25 to win the 4x400 by a margin of .10 seconds, the team’s best run in the event this season.

Neirick said new hurdle coach Sydney Haydel ’10, who is in the school’s hall of fame for basketball and track and eld, has played an important role in improving the squad’s hurdles.

“We’ve been working on a lot of form and technique because with the event, you can be a super fast runner, but if you’re not fast over the hurdles it’s going to hurt your time,” Neirick said. “Our