Many high schools, including Quartz Hill High School, only focus on the varsity level when it comes to sports; however, people do not realize the blood, sweat, and tears that the JV athletes put in every single day in order to compete. As track season is on the run, no pun intended, a group of JV boys are showing tremendous effort on and off the track. Even with a full load of honors and AP classes, these boys manage to keep their grades up and also show up to practice every single day. This group, consisting of Dean Payne, Kiran Jain, Noah Hinkley, and Julien Mani, makes up the A team for the 4 X 100 JV squad.

As JV players, many of them are forgotten by the media of our school, but that all changed after their great achievement in last week’s track meet. After placing last for the past couple meets, these boys trained their hardest to improve their chemistry as a whole and to increase their speed for the race.

Last weekend, on April 1, Quartz Hill held the Michelle Perry track meet. Michelle Perry was a Quartz Hill graduate in the 90’s and later became famous for her athleticism. Also, back in 1997, she placed second during the CIF California State Meet on long jump. After graduating, she became part of the United States track team and also became a gold medalist both in 2005 and 2007. With all of her achievements, Quartz Hill honors her by holding an annual invitational track meet.

It was in this race that the boys were able to go from being last to becoming silver medalists. Although tensions were high before the game, the relay group was able to prove the doubters wrong. Dean Payne, a JV starter, stated, “We were all pretty nervous because that race was probably the most competition that we have faced […] together as a team. Before our race, my team and I got together and prayed that we would do great.” Payne also explained that during the start of the race, things got even more intense due to the malfunction of the starter’s gun. “The guy that shoots the gun tells us to get on our marks and get set, and has a jammed gun. At that point, I was even more nervous than I originally was.”

As soon as the race began, the Quartz Hill boys’ “A-team” was ahead of every other team by a good 20-30 meters and had a high chance of placing first. However, by the last 100 meters, Julien Mani was out-run by an athlete from Paraclete High School. Even though they placed second, this was a tremendous achievement for the JV boys and a memory to hold forever.