This season, five athletes broke school records in indoor track. The boys’ team set new records in the two mile and five kilometer events and the girls’ team set new records in the long jump, 400 meter and 200 meter events.

Boys’ track

Striving to improve himself everyday, senior Quinn Potter succeeded in achieving his season goal of beating the indoor track two mile record at Algonquin. 

Potter ran a 9:55.93 two mile at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston on Jan. 26 at the coaches invitational. The previous record for the two mile was 9:58.79. 

“It was a goal I set at the beginning of the season,” Potter said. “I knew that it was a possibility going into the season, so I made sure to do the work to get it.”

Potter has been a focused runner for the past few years, and he has gone into practice every day determined to improve. 

“I prepared for the race by doing what I’ve done for the last few years, which is just going to practice every day with a mission to get better and really focusing on the workouts,” Potter said. 

Potter formed a strategic game plan for how he was going to run the race with girl’ head coach Patrick Galvin and assistant coach Ricardo Colon. 

“I stayed relaxed and with the front pack for the first mile then I attacked the second mile,” Potter said. 

He thanks cross country coach Nathanial Uttaro, boys’ track and field head coach Andrew Boschetto, Galvin and Colon for his success.

“I can credit [them] for all pushing me to be the best that I can and believing in me all the way,” Potter said.

Junior Cole Gamache broke the school record for the five kilometer race on Dec. 28 at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston at the district classic invitational. 

Gamache’s time was his personal best of 16:52.4 which exceeded the previous record set in 2015 at 17:20. 

“It was a great feeling being one of the first to run it but also one of the fastest in the school to run it on an indoor track,” Gamache said. 

In indoor track, the five kilometer is not typical but  Gamache felt prepared and up for the challenge. He and his teammate, junior Will Lamburn, worked together to prepare for the race. 

“Will and I love the 5k as it’s our main distance we run when it comes to cross country, so we knew we would be able to run a fast time,” Gamache said. 

During the race, Gamache was focused solely on beating his personal best time. 

“I knew about the record before the race but my focus was just to run a faster 5k then my previous best in cross country (16:59) at the twilight invitational in Cape Cod,” Gamache said. 

He is proud of the record he was able to set and hopes he will keep his competitive edge in future races. 

“I was very happy to beat the record by almost 30 seconds and that definitely boosted my confidence for the rest of the season,” Gamache said. 

Girls’ track

Girls’ indoor track succeeded this season by winning the Central Massachusetts District Championship Meet for the first time in program history on Feb. 8 and breaking three school records at the East Coast Invitational in Rhode Island on Jan. 17.  

Only in her second year running indoor track, sophomore Olivia Kardos broke the 400 meters record with a time of 1:05.24.

“It feels amazing to break a record, but it took a lot of practice and determination along with help from my coach and teammates,” Kardos said. “I’ve always wanted to have a record at Algonquin, and I hope to break more.”

Junior Christina Defeudis also broke a record by jumping a 16’5.5 in the long jump.

“Breaking the record is a goal I’ve had for a long time,” Defeudis said. “Finally breaking it this year feels really good especially considering last year I was unable to, and I was working at it all last season.”

In the 200 meter event, junior Day Ruffo broke a record with a time of 27.25. 

“It feels pretty good to break a record knowing that I had to work really hard throughout the season and knowing what I had to do to build up to this point,” Ruffo said. “I broke it last year, but this year I knew I had to run even faster than last year in order to beat it again.”

She focused on what techniques she learned in practice and applied it to the meets in order to obtain the school record. 

“Throughout the season we worked on speeding up in the beginning of the race which helped me go faster in the 200,” Ruffo said. “Hopefully along with 200 we can beat the 4×200 record by working harder and applying the same mindset of winning to get there.” 

The success of the girls this season is due to a variety of factors according to head track coach Patrick Galvin.

“We have an experienced group,” Galvin said. “They’ve been to the large meets and experienced them before. They know the routines that we’ve kept in place in season past in terms of practices. It just comes down to getting it done at the meets.”