Having not being able to capture a single win last season the Hopedale girls track team had only one way to go – up. The Blue Raider track and field athletes were able to improve over last year’s output by capturing two wins and finished the season with a 2-5 record.
“We had a very small team this year with only 11 girls to compete in nine events,” Hopedale Coach Sarah Rafferty said. “It puts a lot of pressure on the girls with most of them having to take part in three events per meet and a handful; of them only participate in one.”
According to the Hopedale Coach, a lot of the students for some reason don’t take part in indoor sports at the high school, thus the numbers are down in all the winter sports not just track. Needless to say, the team had to work extremely hard just to secure those two wins.
At the Central Mass Division 2 Tournament in Fitchburg Kate Hockenbury was Hopedale’s big winner. The Blue raider shot putter took home second place in the event with a throw of 33’ 9”. The toss was her personal best and bested her previous school record of 33’ 4 ½”.
“Kate has been a force for us all season long,” Rafferty said. “But over the past few weeks we got her to rally focus in the weight room and she’s peaking at the right time as she enters the post-season.”
Another Hopedale athlete that performed well in the tournament was freshman Alyssa Spiezio, a distance runner for Hopedale that takes part in the 1000, the mile and the 2-mile. The freshman also is part of the 4 x 400 relay team that finished in seventh place. Running with Spiezio in the relay were teammates Cely Ramos, Sonya Ternado and Lexi Marcott.
“These four have been running the 4 x 4 for us for the most part of the year,” the Hopedale Coach said. “Although their time of 5:04.93 was not one of their best times this year they did run well considering the Fitchburg track is one of the toughest to run on.”
The biggest of surprise for the coaching staff was when they switched Ramos and Ternado from short distance running to long distance in order to help the team not only fill event vacancies in the nine events while securing points.
Qualified Hopedale athletes will now head to the District 5 State Divisional Tournament at the Reggie Lewis center in Boston with a chance to move onto the States. Ramos will be running in the 600 meters, while Spiezio, Ternado and Marcott will be joining her in the 4 x 400 relay and Hockenbury, who has the best chance of the Hopedale athletes to earn a top four spot and move onto States, will be once again throwing the shot put.