Track beats Harriton, falls to Upper Darby in first meet

By Noah Levine, Staff Reporter

The Conestoga boys’ and girls’ spring track teams competed in their first meets of the season yesterday against Upper Darby and Harriton High Schools. The girls ran at Upper Darby while the boys competed at Harriton.

The girls team defeated Harriton convincingly by a margin of 93 points, as did the boys, finishing with a score of 101 to 38. Both teams, however, fell short against a strong Upper Darby squad–the girls lost by 28 points and the boys by 87.

“I was really impressed at the efforts,” said head coach Ryan Comstock. “Everyone was on the ball and they ran really hard. Some of the times were pretty impressive for being this early in the season. I was very happy.”

Two ‘Stoga athletes performed exceptionally well: senior Sam Nelson [to read a feature on Nelson, click here] and sophomore Gunnar Sjoreen. Nelson racked up a total of 28 points against both teams, competing in the discus, javelin, and shot put events. On the boys’ side, Sjoreen, a former sprinter, scored 16.25 points, winning the 1600 meter race with a time of 4:41.2, a personal best.

“The team did very well,” Sjoreen said. “I think we all gave it our best effort. It felt great [to win] and obviously the main part of the running is to get to Centrals, but right now all I really care about is staying in front.”

The teams will compete one more time before spring break at Haverford High School on Saturday in the Central League Relays.

Noah Levine can be reached at nlevine@stoganews.com.