Andover Track started the competitive season with a critical success. Athletes of all events beat their Deerfield and Taft competitors for a definitive victory. Captain Chase Potter ’09 said, “They are middle of the pack teams and in the past we have had some close meets with them, but I know we have won that meet for boys and girls at least the last four years.” Andover’s pole vaulters proved strong in their first meet. Malin Adams ’09 won in his event, and Peter Ly ’09 came in second to gain Andover some of its first points of the meet. Charlie Ganner ’10, who has proven himself a fast distance runner in previous seasons, showed he was ready for another season, winning both the 1500 and 3000 meter races. Potter said, “Charlie had an amazing meet, winning both in very fast times.” Catherine Coppinger ’09 also had a stand-out performance, winning the 400 and anchoring both the 4 by 100 and 4 by 400 relays, both of which beat the competition by several seconds. Stassja Sichko ’10 shone in the middle distances by winning the 800. Newcomer Alexis Walker ’12 performed well, winning the 100 in 13.2 seconds and the 200 in 27.9 seconds, both of which are extremely impressive times, especially for a freshman. “This is my first time being on a track team,” said Walker. “But I always loved running, so I thought I’d be good at it, and I guess I was. I didn’t think I’d do this well, though.” This sort of definitive victory is especially rare so early in the season, with so many people new to the team. “Despite the fact that we’d only trained for two weeks and lost two practices due to weather, our team looked amazing,” said Captain Annie McDonough ’09. “Many of our athletes are already showing improvement.” Potter said, “We are still focusing more on strength, as we hope to peak later in the season.” This has been Coach Corbin Lang’s training plan for many years. “If your fastest time is in your first race,” he often says, “we’ve done something wrong. We want to work on building up the strength of the runners first, in the hopes that they are able to come through with that extra push to improve their times.” Andover’s track athletes plan to only improve, and hope for a similarly impressive win in their meet against Phillips Exeter this weekend.
