Alex Fleury ’20 raced ahead of his opponents to give Andover’s 4×400-Meter Relay team an early lead in its meet against Governor’s and Lawrence High on Wednesday. Fleury’s and others’ successes helped Andover Boys Indoor Track & Field win with 64.5 points, compared to Lawrence’s 61.5 points and Governor’s 10 points. The team’s record now stands at 3-1.
Despite Fleury’s strong start, Andover fell short of Lawrence’s first place 4×400-Meter Relay team by a fraction of a second.
Much like last week’s meet against Andover High School and Wilbraham & Monson, many of Andover’s competitors posted multiple new personal records.
As demonstrated by the prevalence of personal records set, Wednesday’s meet, along with the week’s practices, have provided many of Andover’s runners with the opportunity to improve their individual skills, according to Ben Fu ’21 and Han Chin Toh ’22.
Fu said, “I’ve definitely improved somewhat. It’s a slow process, and progress isn’t linear by any means. I think just keeping up with practice every single day and participating in every single meet builds up.”
Toh said, “I think [I’ve improved since last meet in terms of] mental preparation, and not being so stressed out [or] worried about my performance. I just decided to focus on following the technique, and I think that’s how I improved [this meet].”
With the help of Toh, Andover secured a first place victory in Shot Put.
Toh said, “I’d say [my events went] pretty well. For shot put I [set a personal record] twice, which I am happy about.”
Andover’s top performers provide both motivation and inspiration for the rest of the team, according to Fu and Jack Wild ’21.
“We have some really good runners. Alex Fleury [’20] is one of our best runners. He is an inspiration to me, and he is the [greatest of all time],” said Fu.
Wild said, “We have some really great people in all events, we have record holders, we have top ten, and the good thing about them is, they not only run fast, but they’re really good at encouraging the rest of the team, and helping them out.”
Next week Andover will face Governor’s and Wilbraham.
