The Lafayette girls track team has been hot and cold to say the least. They have had several first place team finishes, such as the Lady Lancer Invitational, the Northwest Invitational and the Festus Early Bird. However, they have had a few meets, like the recent Ladue Brusca/Strohbach Invitational and ParkRock invitational where they finished out of the top five, finishing in sixth place for both. Despite the few outlying not first place finishes, the team is still on track to place at the State level of competition.

Despite finishing in sixth place as a team, several individual runners still had top-tier finishes. Kaleea Johnson finished in fourth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.83. Mollie Rogan finished fourth in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:25.40. Also, Julia Romero finished second in the 3200-meter run (about two miles) with a time of 11:17.87.

Relay teams also did well, with the 4×100-meter relay and 4×800-meter relay teams getting fifth and second place respectively.

The team’s best finish however, was in the distance medley relay (DMR), with a first place finish. The DMR is a relay consisting of the 1200-meter run, the 400-meter dash, the 800-meter dash and the 1600-meter run in that order. The first place winning team consisted of Grace Breiten, Anna Casey, Mackenzie Stdko-Simon and Adrean Meriweather.

Senior and team captain Anna West spoke out about the different things that make the team as good as they are.

“There are a lot of talented girls. (With many) this is their first year (running) and they’re doing really well, so it’s exciting to see,” West said.

As a team leader, West has many responsibilities along with fellow leader Sarah Nicholson.

“Something new that Sarah and I started this year is we do ‘athletes of the week,’ where we like to recognize girls who we think are doing outstanding things on the team and are really making the atmosphere great. We’re just trying to include everybody and make it a good experience,” West said.

The team’s current meet is the Eureka invitational, a two-day meet being hosted by Eureka, but at Lafayette.