HHS Lady Streaks track team strutted their stuff in the Bulldog Qualifier on Saturday Jan. 25 at Liberty University. Junior Mikaila Williams placed first in the triple jump despite a shoulder injury, Rebekah Good came in second in shot put and sophomore Olivia Yutzy placed first in the 55 meter hurdles, improving her time as third fastest of all-time at HHS. The girls came in third out of 15 teams.

Williams admits her favorite part of the meet was winning the triple jump, but she also had a banner day in a few other events.

“[I enjoyed] the 55 meter dash because I made it to finals,” Williams said.

However by the time the 300 meter run rolled around, Williams was tired. Besides the 55 meter dash and the triple jump, she also competed in the long jump and the four by 200 meter relay.

“[My goal for future meets is] to eat before the meet,” Williams said. She did not eat breakfast before getting on the bus that morning.

Good only throws shot put at indoor meets, and therefore was done for the day while everyone else was just starting.

“I got to sleep. I was done around 11:30 a.m., so for the rest of the meet I could do whatever I wanted,” Good said.

She was disappointed to come in second, but the girl who threw the first place shot put threw 42 feet. Good’s throw of 35 feet 11 inches was short of her goal coming into the meet.

“[My goal was] to throw 40 [feet], but my rotator cuff is not rotating properly,” Good said.

Good’s next goal is to win the 4A state championship.

Junior Mariela Calderon competed in the 1600 meter run.

“[The hardest part was] the second to last lap. I wasn’t sure of my pace, and I wasn’t sure of what to do at that point,” Calderon said.

In the mile, the girls given the numbers nine through 11 were placed in the outside lanes ahead of the first eight runners and had to run in those lanes for the first two turns on the track and could only break into lane one on the third curve. Calderon was not pleased with the set up.

After the mile, she was done for the day.

“[My favorite part of the meet was] watching the four by fours. They’re really intense,” Calderon said.

Head coach David Loughran used the meet as preparation for the conference meet.

“We needed to improve performance heading into conference, iron out some relays for conference and give some people a chance to earn a spot on our conference team,” Loughran said.

Moving on, the main goal is to keep all of his athletes healthy.

“Part of the plan [moving on with the season] is out of our hands, but we want to keep everyone healthy and navigate poor weather to get work done and line up the team to win the conference 23 championship,” Loughran said.

Loughran enjoyed watching athletes compete throughout the day.

“The four by eight was a joy to watch. Last week our relay team was left wondering if they were as good as I said they were, and they answered that today. Their automatic region qualifying time allows us some flexibility at the conference meet,” Loughran said.

“[It was fun to watch] Olivia’s 9.15 seconds in the hurdles and to watch her improve her time on the all time list.”

At this meet, the number of people a coach could enter per event was unlimited. Loughran took advantage of that to maximize the number of athletes competing.

“There were no entry limits which allowed us to put many athletes in many events if we could cover the entry fee. This allowed us to not have to make decisions about who to take and who had to stay home,” Loughran said.

“It allowed us to use our entire deep team in competition.”

The conference 23 championship meet will be on Feb. 12. The girls have hopes to take home the gold once again at the next meet.