With last year’s track teams scoring 10th and 6th in boys and girls state respectively, the Hornets have been trying out new workouts and are always looking to improve. Despite this, they have strived to maintain their core principles.

After lots of hard work during the offseason, senior Grady Morriss had a good feeling this season would go in their favor.

“Our team is pretty big compared to the past couple of years, so we may have a better chance of winning conference or state.” Morriss said.

Junior Jack Landrum is also confident that the two track teams will perform better this season because of how much they’ve been pushing themselves during drills both at practice and at home. 

“I think that this year’s work will pay off better than it did last year,” Landrum said. “I feel like we’ve put a lot of work in, and I feel like we can go out there and win some meets.”

Sophomore Lilly James has been putting in work both on and off the track. 

“I’ve been doing a lot of training, a lot of hanging out with the team and doing things like that.”

Senior Brandon Girón made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with his performance last season and was determined to make the improvements necessary for his team’s success.

“It was good, obviously not what I wanted. I still broke my old school record, but I was short off the mile record. Hopefully I can get that this year.” Girón said. 

The track team’s training didn’t come without struggles. Injuries, the impact it has on the body and multitasking all stood in their way.

“Well, last semester during cross-country, I had a little injury again,” Morriss said. “So I have kind of just been recovering from that and keeping it slow. I’m slowly ramping up mileage until we get into some harder workouts.”

Steve Oury, the coach of the boys track team, also faced some difficulties last season as Bryant has one of the smallest coaching staffs at the 6A level.

“It is a real challenge to adequately meet the demands of preparing for 18 events in a track meet with only 4 coaches split between the boys and girls programs.” Oury said. “To say that we have to multitask is an understatement.”

Despite these hurdles, the Bryant track teams are determined to start this season on the right foot.

“We want to build upon last season’s success,” Oury said. “Focus this season on being a year better, not just a year older.”