The WJ track and field team hosted the first ever DMV Wildcat Invite on Saturday, April 5. This was monumental for the program as while WJ hosts the Montgomery Invitational at Prince George’s Sportsplex every winter, the Wildcat Invite was the first invitational hosted on school grounds.
Both the boys’ and girls’ teams had a great showing with many personal bests and high finishes. Overall the girls’ placed sixth and the boys’ placed ninth out of 30+ schools.
The girls’ 4×200 meter relay got second with a time of 1:45.69, run by seniors Bella Relacion, Hillary Alao, Isabel Chomas and sophomore Sydney Walsh. Another second place relay finish was by the boys’ 4×400 meter relay which clocked a time of 3:22.63 by seniors Raphael Meltzer and Gideon Gotiangco, junior Alessandro Marenco and sophomore Amadeo Apolinar.
Coming off of a state championship win in the 800 meters and a trip to New Balance Nationals during indoor track, senior Megan Raue had two third place individual finishes in both the 800 meters with a time of 2:14.17 and in the 1600 meters with a time of 5:05.00.
“The meet went really well for me personally as I PRed in the 800, and I think it went very well for the team as well as a lot of people had individual and relay PRs,” Raue said. “It was fun running on our own track, and I think the coaches and volunteers did a great job running it as it went by fast for the amount of teams and events that there were.”
On the boys’ side there were two other third place individual finishes. Meltzer finished third in the 200 meters and Marenco in the 300 meter hurdles.
Along with the success of the athletes, the WJ coaching staff ran an efficient invitational. Head coach Bryan Hoffman worked to set up everything and get the event approved by administration, to then get the information up on athletic.net where teams signed up.
“So once you get all the approval, then I had to submit for a sanctioning through the MPSSAA, which allows anyone like DC, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania even hypothetically to attend as well,” Hoffman said. “We had a lot of diverse teams there, we had private schools, we had Maryland schools, Virginia schools, DC schools. So anytime you can get a diverse pool like that it’s extremely good competition wise, especially for us instead of seeing the same teams over and over again.”
Beyond the invitational having lasting impacts, it allowed the track team to bring in money for the program and all of WJ athletics.
“All the money that comes in through entry fees becomes a fundraiser for the athletic department here, we get funds through spectator admission as well,” Hoffman said. “Booster Club runs the concession stand and they said that this was by far the most profitable event they’ve had and it almost made as much money as the entire winter season did. So that’s really exciting for them because it was a really good fundraising opportunity for them as well.”
