This year, track and field athletes went to 13 meets and sent two students to state, seniors Cole Coppedge and Leeah Boyd. Coppedge broke three school records this year in the 4×100-meter relay, 100-meter dash and 200-meter dash, and Boyd broke the school pole vault record.

The state championships May 3 were at Mike A. Myers Stadium. Boyd placed seventh in state. Coppedge fell down, hurt himself and got last place in his heat, but placed ninth overall in state for the 200-meter dash.

“I was stressing out so much beforehand that my hair [was] falling out,” Coppedge said. “When I started sprinting, those nerves took over, and I fell. I’m trying not to beat myself up about it, though. I had a good year.”

Head coach Chance Edwards said the team was relatively new this year due to multiple freshmen joining. Additionally, assistant coach Montrell Pyron, who specializes in sprints, came back this year after a few years of absence.

“I thought we had a pretty good year, for the lack of depth,” Edwards said. “I can’t be upset with the way things went. We’re working on [training] the freshmen for next year and getting more people involved in field events.”

The first meet of the season was a practice tri-meet at McKinney North on Feb. 6. There was one “elite performance” posted—a 37-7 in shot put—but otherwise, no achievements were posted.

“[The tri-meet] gave us perspective on how the season [would] go,” Boyd said. “Even though the first meet is usually just seen as a glorified practice, it set the stage for how we could perform.”

On Feb. 22, the team hosted an invitational meet at Brian Brazil Stadium. The team won five events: the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, 1600-meter run and pole vault.

“[The home meet] was big this year,” Edwards said. “There were a lot of really good teams. I was looking for the group to step up a notch, because home matters more.”

The team attended five relay meets this season: McKinney Boyd, Plano East, Coppell, Naaman Forest and Jesuit. They didn’t win any of the 30 events at the McKinney Boyd Relays, but there were several “elite performances” at the Plano East meet March 1 in long jump, discus, 100-meter and 200-meter dash and pole vault.

“[The] Plano East [meet] is the first time we saw our kids where they needed to be,” Edwards said. “The nice weather helped. We got some good [pole] vault numbers and sprint [times.]”

At Coppell, the girls took home five wins —- discus, pole vault, 800-meter run and 400-meter dash — while the boys won the 100-meter dash.

“The whole team was improving,” Boyd said. “My teammates did really well. I’m so proud of the way we performed.”