The track and field team season officially starts Saturday at Wylie High School with the first meet of the year.

“We have prepared a lot for this upcoming season,” head girls track coach Logan Kelly said. “We started official practices after Thanksgiving break and trained during the off season in the fall. Coach Christensen has our distance runners training year round. The distance runners put in some great work during cross country season and the winter break. Both the girls on the team and Coach Purcell (the boys head coach) have mentioned to me that we are ahead of the ball game in regards to practices and training in comparison to last year. We have specific practice days schedule for running workouts, field events, and relays. This weekend will be our first outdoor meet of the year.”

Head boys track coach Shawn Purcell has focused on filling up all the slots for events this year.

“We have a big track team this year,” Purcell said. “We are going to field almost 100 percent of the events, and so filling all those up will help us score more points, and be much more competitive.”

Purcell has also focused more on having success in the relay events.

“Our emphasis has been on the relays this year,” Purcell said. “We have been training them for the 4 by 4 to get that endurance needed to run that 400. And so for that group of runners, I’m really excited about. I think we will be really competitive.”

On the girl’s side, Kelly has also emphasized the importance of filling up all events in the meet.

“One of my main goals for this year is to get as many athletes to qualify out of district as possible,” Kelly said. “I have had all the girls at least attempt to practice 1-2 field events during practices. I want to have all events filled with three athletes at the district meet and increase our odds of scoring points. Some teams neglect field events and only focus on running. Teams that can fill each event with three athletes tend to do better over the teams that neglect those areas.”

The track team has several runners returning from last year who placed in regionals, and are looking towards making it to the state meet.

“The Tedder twins are looking strong and they should both advance to regionals and hopefully state,” Kelly said.

With practice beginning months ago, the track team feels well prepared to take on the upcoming district season.

“I think we will do pretty good in the new district this season,” senior runner Noah Coffey said. “We have a lot of really good sprinters and long distance runners.”

Kelly believes that the track team will have success this year if they do what he believes needs to be done.

“I want our girls to work hard, stay committed to the process and be tough,” Kelly said. “If we do those three things we will do well as a team and achieve our best.”