WA’s Indoor Track Team started off their season strong with a win against Concord-Carlisle at the TRACK at New Balance in Boston on Wednesday, Dec. 14. For the first indoor track meet of the season, girls won 56-44 and boys won 58-42, putting themselves 1-0 in the Dual County League, even without prominent runners like junior Paul Bergeron and junior Adam Wedlake.

In the first event of the meet, the 55m dash, senior Ellie Tweedie started by flying to the finish line and taking first in the race while breaking a five-year school record in the process, running a 7:22 compared to the record held by junior Jacki Harding since 2018, running a 7.41 . On the boys’ side, junior Devesh Khamitkar placed fifth with a 6:98 sprint in his first season in indoor track.

Both sides of the WA Indoor Track team had their successes with various short-distance races throughout the competition.

The boys took the second place spot with senior Aiden Mahoney running a 37.50 in a close 300m race, while the girls had a streak of top five runners in the 600m race, with junior Vanessa Urizandi taking second place with a 1:47.30, freshman Abby Hennessy locked in third with a 1:47.79, and sophomore Ashley Vinith overtook fourth with 1:50.13.

Later into the meet, long-distance running put some of WA’s top runners into the spotlight. The 1000m run was participated in by sophomore Sydney Weiss landing a spot in fourth, a tight top five spot with a time of 3:15.64, as well as junior Greta Spahr in 14th place and 18th place for freshman Kaelyn D’eon.

The 1-mile race was a spectacular sight to see for both sections of the team, which include the notable senior Austin DeSisto and freshman Emily Wedlake. DeSisto destroyed the competition with a 4:43.32 mile time and the first-place position with senior Owen Schultz not coming far behind in ninth place. Wedlake certified herself in third place only two seconds behind the second-place position with a time of 5:25.91.

Simultaneously, the meet delivered new personal records by numerous students in the field category.

The long jump put in many points for WA from the contributions of sophomore Audrey Smagula with a jump of 5’2″ in first place and junior Alin Aydogan’s jump of 4’10” in fifth.

In the girl’s long jump, Urizandi asserted herself into 6th place with a 15′ 2.75″ while sophomore Dilan O’Hearn competed in boy’s long jump leaping 17’11” and taking home fifth, all the while contesting in boys high jump jumping 5’8″ tieing with second place.

By the end of the meet, Khamitkar, junior Jason Story, sophomore Orion Saunders, and Mahoney took on the 4×200 (four runners switch for every 200m) leading them to take fifth place with a 1:42.56, while the girl’s section was made up by Tweedie, sophomore Nadia Swepson, senior Olivia Baumert, and junior Jordan Bishop were on their way to finishing but were disqualified.

For the last official event of the meet, Schultz, sophomore Jack Graffeo, DeSisto, and sophomore Nathan Dubay competed in the 4×400 (four runners switch for every 400m) and were pushed back to the seventh place spot with a time of 3:53.94, but Vinith, Weiss, Wedlake, and senior Katie Walpole clutched their spot in third place to certify a lead against Concord-Carlisle.

At the end of the meet, when finding out about the win over Concord-Carlisle, the team erupted in a cheer but was determined to perform better than the first meet of the season.

To get an insight on what players thought would improve the team going deeper into the indoor track season, Wedlake responded players believed they could improve by becoming more collaborative.

“Just getting more close and more motivation will help for the future,” Wedlake said.

WA is looking optimistic toward the next match at Boston University’s Track and Tennis Center on Tuesday, Dec. 20. at 4 p.m. and their opponent is TBD.