The Boys and Girls Indoor Track and Field teams celebrate the end of the A/E meet with a full team picture.
On Wednesday, Boys Indoor Track and Field traveled to Phillips Academy Exeter (Exeter) for the annual Andover/Exeter (A/E) meet. Although the team ultimately fell 75.33-33.66, among the highlights was Co-Captain Daniel Bae ’23 breaking the 300-Meter school record with a time of 36.12 seconds.
However, prior to the A/E dual meet, Tam Gavenas ’25 represented the team in the 3,000-Meter race at the Boston University Valentine Invitational. Setting a new personal record (PR) of 8:26.92, Gavenas described the supportive environment that he competed in, surrounded by coaches, teammates, and alumni.
“It just really felt good having all my coaches there supporting me, and Max supporting me, and just like getting on the track, just running my race. And Coach [Patrick] Reilly, in fact, brought an old Captain, or an old member of the team, Chris Ratcliffe [’20], who gave me a pre-race hype, and so it was really fun,” said Gavenas.
Though the team may not have collected a win, Sami Tokat ’26 maintained a positive outlook on its performance.
“I think it was super positive. We had some really good competition from Exeter, they’re one of the top teams, I would say, in the region… and they went out and we battled hard. I think that a lot of the times fell and people PR’ed, and it was just overall sort of positive,” Tokat said.
John Moran ’24, a thrower, discussed both the mental and physical aspects that the team worked to improve on before their final meet. Moran spoke on the importance of respect at such an important meet as this one.
“[Spirit] is one of the main things we’ve been trying to maintain. Respect was also something emphasized, because Andover/Exeter is a pretty big matchup for our school. That’s usually when people get spicy. So emphasizing the importance of being respectful to everyone was important. In terms of improving on my event it was just a lot of strength training,” said Moran.
Though track isn’t often thought of as a team sport, Tokat highlighted the strengths of the team and its unconditional support of each other.
“I would say just the comradery that we’ve built in the sport, like the teamwork, being able to work off of each other in the races, and being able to support each other even though we’re competing, we’re competing together, and I think that’s super strong,” Tokat said.
Moran believes the meet stands as a worthy finish to the regular season for most of the team. In addition, Moran shared his satisfaction with how the season carried out.
“I think it was a good conclusion to the season because as I said, tons of PRs, tons of records. Everyone I talked to said, ‘You know, I did this at the start of the season, and I did this at the end of the season, and I’m really happy with how it all worked out.’ So I would say it definitely was a strong conclusion to the season even though we didn’t get the result we wanted in terms of points,” said Moran.
Select members of the team will travel to Harvard University this Sunday for the USA Track & Field (USATF) New England Championships.
