Passing the Baton From Indoor Track to Outdoor Track

Though our track and field program at Arcadia has only been around for a few years, we only continue to improve season to season. As we just wrapped up our 2023-2024 indoor track season, it’s been exciting to look back and recognize that this has been our best team performance to date.

Following our conference championship, we had a lot to be proud of. This is the first year that Arcadia has earned three medals: two silvers, including myself in the 800 and Myles Sams in triple jump, and a bronze earned by Matthew Schutz in pole vault. This is also the first time that we have a qualifier for DIII Indoor Track and Field Nationals: Myles in triple jump. The 2023-24 season was also the year of breaking and setting records; over half of the record book was broken in this season alone. 

On the distance side, at the beginning of the school year, we received a new coach and a completely new approach to training. Coming off of a record-breaking cross country season, we were anticipating a big improvement from the previous years. By the end of our championships, both the men’s and women’s teams had broken every single record from the 800 meter dash to the 5k. Our women’s distance team saw four podium finishes– two individual finishes in the 3k and the 800, and two relay finishes– the distance medley relay and 4×800. 

The field events also had a lot of success this year. From throws to jumps to pole vault, our team had multiple broken records, new personal records, and podium finishes. Sprints also had a strong first-year class that rounded out our men’s and women’s teams and contributed more depth to help our team rise to the occasion. 

Indoor track is based heavily around strength training and preparing ourselves for outdoor track. With any luck, our hard work from this season will carry itself over as we transition to a new opportunity for success.