Girls Indoor Track Prepares for State Meet

The RMHS Girls Winter Track captains.

Captain Elizabeth Dohanue (‘22) has had an impressive season so far after breaking her two mile time by four seconds and setting a new school record of 11 minutes 32 seconds. She is excited for the state meet and believes she has a chance of placing well in the two mile since she currently holds the second place spot in the league for that event. With pressure and expectations building up, Donahue claims the best way to emotionally prepare for such a tough race is to make sure she is in the right positive mindset. “I think that the biggest part of running is the mindset and once you put in the hard work at practice, once you start racing, it’s just how you think in your mind, so just focusing on the positive things is helpful.” Donahue is a strong team player and shares this mindset with her teammates as states draws near. “My expectation is just to have fun,” she said. “I think if you have the opportunity to race with the best girls in the state, it’s just really exciting and we’ve already done all the hard work, so we just have to use it on Sunday and give it everything we have.”

Coach Nancy Madden describes the girls’ pre-meet training as intense and condensed, as the focus narrows down on only the small group of girls who have qualified for the meet. She has high hopes that certain runners, including Donahue and Sedona Skenderian (‘23), will place in their respective events of the two mile and 55 dash. She recognizes the anxiety this meet has put on the girls, but she doesn’t let them give up when they’ve come this far. “My saying to the kids is ‘do your best today,’ because it’s not always going to be what your best was the other day and the other day and the other day. And at the end of the day, you walk away and can say, ‘I did the best I could today,’ I’m happy with that.” After a successful season and seeing how hard the girls have worked, Ms. Madden’s pride and confidence in the team is truly what will fuel the girls’ performances at Sunday’s meet. “So they try harder, they’re more serious, and I think that this season, that was sort of our goal, to try to go into each meet saying ‘we are going to win,’” she exclaimed. “Not that we [always] did, but that was our goal. We were going to go into each meet saying ‘we are going to win’. And I think that was the attitude of the team.”

Captain Jackie Caraco (‘22) competes in hurdles and the 4×400 relay. She is also looking forward to the state meet. “I am really excited that I’m able to go. If you were to tell me that [I would be running in this meet] four years ago, I would think you were crazy,” she said. 

Caraco takes her role as a captain seriously and makes sure to show support for her teammates during practices and meets. She said, “I make sure that anything that my coach asks the captains to do gets done so the team can keep having fun.”