Get to Know the Coach

       Coach Douma has been coaching for 3 years. She coaches both Girls Track and Cross Country. She has participated in track her whole life. She took on the high school position when it was offered to her, because she loves helping athletes improve.

Expectations as a Team

Girls Track is really setting high expectations this year. They want to have a high team GPA for the season. They want to finish top 3 in the conference and top 5 in the county. While they are at it, they also want to break school records. Freshman Samantha Williams stated, “People say track girls are obsessed with running, but obsessed is just another word for dedicated.” This is true for athletes for all sports. It takes an obsession to do well in a sport because you also have to be dedicated to succeed in sports.

Strengths and Weaknesses as a Team

All teams have their strengths and weaknesses. Coach Douma stated, “The team has hard workers and more depth, and there are a lot of new people who need experience.”  Coach Douma encourages her team by having a lot of talks at the end of practice and by setting team goals. Coach Douma also decided to forego captains this year for track because she wanted everyone, no matter the grade level, to step up give it their all and bring it to the meets.

The Season Thus Far

       Freshman Kayla Stewart said, “Track is great! Everyone on the team supports one another in all their events and we’ve been working really hard to make sure we have a great season.” This shows that no matter what everyone is supporting one another and that is what teamwork is really about.

The girls dual meet record at this point is 0 – 3. This year, however, Girls Track placed 4^th out of 13 teams in the Passaic County Relays – last year they came in 11^th – this shows major improvement for the team. The girls made a strong improvement in the field events, where Haley Steel and Briana Romer teamed-up to win the pole vault relay, Jessica Rolando and Kayla Osborne threw for 2^nd in javelin, and Samantha Flemming, along with Rolando, earned 2^nd in the discus relay. On the track, it was the 4 x 800 team of Taylor Ryan, Gabby Catania, Madeline Pluta and Devon Marino, who caused excitement, coming from behind to take 4^th place.

This is a dedicated group of girls, who work together to try their hardest.  As senior Taylor Ryan put it as, “There is only one way to succeed in anything, and that’s to give it everything.”