As the track tream begins the outdoor season, the indoor season has left a great mark on Homestead athletics’ history. Less than a week apart, the boys’ relay team—Sean O’Byrne, Jackson Montgomery, Lucas Mersky, seniors, and Christian Torres, junior, rewrote school history. First, they broke a 12-year-old 4x200m record, then, less than a week later, a 22-year-old 4x160m record.
For O’Byrne, the experience was familiar but still thrilling.
“It feels just spectacular, amazing.” With his seventh record in the books, he has become a team leader. Although slightly surprised about the team’s early success, he points to the team’s younger talent, “Christian did a really good job… he really held his own against some of the guys that were more experienced.”
For O’Byrne, his motivation was the record board as he walked into the stadium every day.
“It’s inspiring,” he said, hoping his name would be on the board again. Fortunately, it is, along with three of his teammates. Now O’Byrne sets his sights on breaking his own outdoor 100m and 200m records.
Montgomery reflects on the success.
“We all knew we were going to be close to getting it because we have some really fast kids.”
His motivation came from teammates’ competitiveness, “they pushed me and I’m sure I pushed them.”
Montgomery believes his commitment to his sport and discipline helped him climb to the top. Although impressed with his team’s success, he’s still unsatisfied and has his eyes set on a few outdoor records.
Mersky saw his team’s success off the bat.
“We knew we were going to have a good team this year, so it feels great that everything is coming together. Going into the meet, all he wanted was to win, “I had complete faith in myself and my teammates and knew that we could win if we executed our race plan.”
These records mean a lot to Merksy because he started the season with none, but “the hard work my team and I put in during the offseason paid off, and I am very thankful to be a part of such a great group.” He won’t stop at four new school records, though, setting sights on the outdoor season, Mersky wants to become a state champion and is willing to outwork anyone to achieve that.
At the start of the season, Coach Matt Wolf said his goals for the team were to get “1% better each day.” After recent events, however, it seems they are ready to move on to the next step. Wolf saw the potential in his relay team early on: “When we saw the times the guys were running as individuals, it just becomes math, you start to add the times up and realize they can do something special.”
The team set off this month to begin the outdoor season, hungry to break more records. If the indoor season was just the beginning, the outdoor season looks like it promises something even greater.
