By David Zheng
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This school’s women’s track team is continuing its run for a State title, with the Regional meet and the State tournament right around the corner. 

Alex Chitwood, varsity runner and sophomore, said the team has been working hard in practices to be successful in the tournament competition. “We have been doing really well, and we’re really confident about our ability to perform in the tournament,” Chitwood said. “We usually have a hard day every other day, and we have pre-meet days to get ready for the meet. We’ve been doing a lot more speed work to help us work on kicks at the end, and it’s really starting to pay off.”

Head Coach Tim Mylin said he thinks the team is where it needs to be to perform well in the tournament. “We have most of our varsity kids healthy and we hope to get some significant improvements in some of our kids’ performances before we fill out the Regional entry list,” Mylin said. “If that goes the way we hope it does, then we’ll be ready to go.”

So far in the tournament, Carmel has placed second in the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference (MIC) behind North Central, as well as placed second at the North Central Invitational. They also came in first place at the Hamilton County meet. “(North Central) has a lot of good people all around in the events, like good sprinters, good distance runners and good field events, so they’re a very well rounded team,” Chitwood said.

According to Mylin, currently ranked number two North Central has been the only team to defeat Carmel in an outdoor meet this season. “We’ve only lost to North Central at the North Central Invitational by 7.5 points and at the MIC by 14 points,” Mylin said. “So far that’s the only team that’s beaten us in the outdoor season.”

In order for Carmel to qualify athletes for the State meet, it needs to have qualifiers in the top three. “If we can accomplish this in a broad spectrum of events then we’re going to be well positioned to do well at the State meet,” Mylin said. “Obviously a win (at Regional) would mean a lot in terms of advancement, but the most important thing for us in terms of moving forward is to get as many people as we can in that top three.”

Chitwood also said she thinks that a good team performance at Sectional could positively impact how the team might perform at the State meet. “I think there’s a really good chance we can do really well (at Sectional),” Chitwood said. “I think winning Sectional would help a lot by motivating the team to do even better and getting a lot of people to qualify.”

“If we can perform at the level we need to by the Regional you’re talking 15-20 athletes possibly competing in the State meet,” Mylin said. “I think we’ve got a team that’s as strong as any team we’ve had since we won the State back in 1998 and 1999.”