For many runners on the Highlander team, this season has posed many challenges, including bad weather, a small team, and stiff competition.  Their overall record this season in duel meets is 2 and 3 with wins over Lakeland and Passaic Valley.  The season started with a, never done before, double duel meet away against both Wayne Hills and Wayne Valley.  These two teams are the toughest in their division, which gave the Highlanders a shaky start.  They lost both meets–51 to 89 Wayne Valley, and 87 to 52 Wayne Hills.  Up next on the busy agenda were the Kearny Relays in which the team was able to score many points throughout the running, jumping, and throwing events, but not enough to win the meet.  Their next duel meet was scheduled home against Lakeland on Monday, April 7.  It was a close win, coming down to the last event, the 4×400 meter relay, which was won by Zack Tynan, Taylor Myshkoff, Saint Diodonet, and Philip Federico.  This gave the Highlanders a 67.5-73.5 win over their rival Lakeland and the determination to continue their strong season.

That weekend the team faced the daunting challenge of Passaic County Relays, an event that the Highlanders won back in 2011.  This year the team finished in 7th with 23 points.  Many athletes medaled and came home happy and were able to set good platform times for the rest of the relay season. Fairlawn High School was able to steal a win from the boys, but not by much.  This home meet came as a disappointment, as it was their last chance to perform at home.  Going head-to-head against Passaic Valley on April 22, was a huge win and confidence booster for the boys with the final score being 127 to 26.

The weekend of April 25-27 proved to be another opportunity for some athletes to run and improve their times.  This year a small group of 10 athletes were able to go down to the Penn Relays held at the University of Penn’s Franklin Field and run a 4×100 meter and 4×400 meter.  This event is the second largest running event in the world, second only to the Olympics.  For many of these athletes, it was the largest running event in which they will ever have the chance to participate.   After the teams ran, they were able to stay in the stadium and watch the men and women’s 4×100 meter Olympic teams run against other international teams such as Jamaica and China.  The men’s team, with anchor Justin Gatland, was able to pull a win for the US over Jamaica in the 4×100 meter by one tenth of a second.  After this once in a life time event, many of the Highlanders are excited and continue to look positively into the future as the individual start of the season begins.  Many athletes plan to make it far into groups and states, but only good times, hard work, and improvement will provide success to these boys.