Many enter, only three come out.

This spring, several Rider track athletes competed at the District meet, all vying for the same thing: a berth at the Regional Meet, and an ultimate trip to the State Meet, held at the University of Texas in Austin.

However, this year, only two athletes made it out of the District meet to the Regional meet: freshman Taylor Mendez and senior Geron Cornwall. Senior Kyle Carpenter was the only Rider athlete to advance from District and Regionals to qualify for the State Meet.

For Mendez, making it to the Regional Meet in the 1600m and 3200m was a surprise in itself.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it to Regionals in the mile because there were two people that were ranked ahead of me,” Mendez said. “I really didn’t think I was going to beat them, and after I did, I was really surprised. The 3200m just happened how I thought it was going to happen.”

Coming into the Regional Meet, Mendez said it was really “nerve-wracking” because she didn’t really know what to expect.

“At Region, I again thought I wasn’t going to do very well because there were a lot of people ranked ahead of me,” Mendez said. “However, I went in with the mentality that anyone can have an off-day in track. I got a higher spot than I thought I was going to get.”

At the Regional Meet, Carpenter cleared his personal goal of 15 feet, something he said he has aspired to ever since he first started vaulting.

But factors out of Carpenter’s control limited him to 5th place at the State Meet.

“It was raining and the wind was blowing really hard, so we went under the stairs because of the lightning,” Carpenter said. “We waited for like 30 minutes and then went back out to the pit to warm up for a few minutes, and then I had to jump cold.”

Mendez, who was also a member of the All-State Cross Country team in the fall, said she thinks track is harder because it requires you to go all out for a relatively short distance.

“Cross country has more of a mental state like ‘keep running, keep going, don’t stop’ cause you’re just going and it’s longer,” Mendez said. “Track is more you go all out for just one mile.”

As a senior, Carpenter said he is unsure about whether he will pursue pole vaulting in college but is optimistic about his future and hopes he can help to pay for college with it.

“I want to try and there are a couple of schools looking at me,” Carpenter said. “I’m just going to talk to them and see what kind of scholarships I can get.”

Mendez said she knows she needs to work hard in her remaining three years to be competitive. To accomplish this, she has set goals for herself to accomplish in her remaining high school career. For example, by her senior year, Mendez said she wants to break five minutes in the 1600m race.

Head Girl’s Track and Field Coach Phyllis Pappas said she is very optimistic about Mendez’s future here.
“I’m really looking forward to see what she can do,” Pappas said. “I think she’s still really raw, but I think she’ll grow by leaps and bounds. She has tremendous work ethic and self-discipline, and I think we’re going to see a lot of her.”

But when it comes down to it, all Rider track athletes have shown that results are achieved through hard work.

Mendez credits the success of the Rider Track and Field Program to the coaches and their hard work, as well as the hard work of the athletes and their dedication to bettering themselves.

Carpenter said he agrees, saying “Rider has a large selection of kids they can choose from, with whoever’s the best representing them.”

However Pappas said it is the leadership of athletes that make the Rider Track and Field Program the success that it is.

“I think in the past, we’ve had some really good leaders, and they’ve passed that leadership down to others, and that has been passed to others,” Pappas said. “We try to make a ‘One Family One Team’ deal, and I think that’s part of it.”