The track team’s new head coach, Ron Douglas has given a few athletes on the track team exciting new opportunities.

Usually the team participates in a few invitational meets and then about four or five league meets. Invitationals are meets that a specific school needs to be invited to. League meets are only for schools within a specific league, and these meets actually count for the team’s standing.

One of the most well-known invitational meets for this area is the King’s Academy Invitational. Invitational meets do not count towards the teams’ points and can be seen as more of a practice meet or another way to get official marks.

This year Coach Douglas has been able to offer select athletes more opportunities. For example, he entered a few athletes into the Stanford invitational meet. Juniors Desea Bond and Melanie Castelli are two NDB jumpers and the only ones to be accepted to the Stanford Invitational.

Bond participated in the triple jump and nearly matched her personal record. In the high jump, Castelli jumped a new personal record and also created a new school record.

Coach Douglas also entered Castelli into the Arcadia Invitational. Arcadia is arguably one of the most competitive high school track meets in the nation. Castilli attended and placed third, making her team and coaches very proud.

Castelli reflected on her achievement, “It was a crazy experience. Everyone there was super nice and there were so many good athletes. It was definitely a highlight of my year.” She then went on to win the WBAL league and is going to compete at state.

Douglas also entered his athletes into the CCS Top 8 meet. Castelli made it for the high jump and the 4×400 relay team participated as well.

Opportunities like this are great for the athletes because it gives high performing athletes more chances to do, and excel in their events. This is especially helpful to upperclassmen who are trying to get recruited.