The outdoor portion of the girls track season commenced on Tuesday, April 5 with their first outdoor race here against Wheeling and Buffalo Grove. The team continues daily practices under their coaching staff, which recently received a new head coach: Tim Phillips.

“Mr. Phillips wants us to do more team bonding stuff because there’s a definite divide between sprinters, distance and throwers. So each section of the team has to make up an activity,” sophomore Abbey Casey said. “We went to Elly’s Pancake House.”

According to sprinting and jumping coach Anna Izzo, under Phillips the sprinters now time their 30 meter flies every week to see their own improvement.

Consistency during practices is the key to success, according to freshman Julia Adrianna Blaszko.

“It’s my first year in track. Coming from not running much at all I’m doing better than I expected,” sophomore Bridget Pelrine said. “Personally my times are average compared to our JV team. The outdoor season just started and I expect to constantly improve.”

Next week the team is going to be competing in the Fenton invite, which they have historically come in first or second place in. Izzo hopes to continue the streak this year.

“We have less injuries than we typically do so we’d like to just keep scoring points at meets, get some medals, have girls come home and see PR’s (personal records) and see improvements in their times,” Izzo said.