On Thursday, March 23, the Redwood varsity track and field team gathered on the Redwood track to take on Marin Catholic (MC) and San Marin in their second meet of the season. Despite facing tough competition, both the girls’ and boys’ varsity teams were able to come out on top and secure a victory in a thrilling meet. 

Earl Downing began coaching track and field in 2007, where he coached for Marin Catholic and Terra Linda. This will be his second year coaching for the Redwood track and field team, and he views this win as a promising sign for their future performances. 

“[Going into the meet], we felt that we were going to do very well against MC, and that we would defeat them soundly. We knew it was going to be an incredible beat down and that’s exactly what it was,” Downing said. 

Downing believes that every individual who participated in this meet did a remarkable job; however, there were some that stood out more prominently to him.

“All of the heads above the crowd were quite elevated… The exertion was spectacular, and everybody from first to last in these races really performed at a high level,” Downing said. “Although the person who especially stood out to me was Ava Walkeryee, she had a great meet today.”

Sophomore Walkeryee started off strong in the 100-meter sprint. She finished with a time of 13.07 seconds, only 0.58 seconds after San Marin and MC. Walkeryee continued to dominate throughout the meet, coming in second place for the 200-meter sprint with a finish time of 27.60 seconds, moments after San Marin. 

Despite a tough first round with MC and San Marin, the team put up a valiant effort through the entirety of the meet and came out strong in the end. 

“I was quite excited to be in competition with MC today. They have some of the fastest girls in the league, which, if anything, made me improve on my running as I passed my personal record in this meet. I found good motivation [because] I was practically chasing MC ahead of me,” Walkeryee said.

Seeing others excel propels Walkeryee to challenge herself and has been a powerful motivator for her to strive for significant achievements this season. She will employ it as a strategy to prevail in the team’s next meet, competing against Branson High School on Wednesday, April 5th, at 4:00 pm at College of Marin.