By Sports Editor Brian Hoffman
Today is the day William Byrd was scheduled to host the Blue Ridge District track meet at Patterson Stadium. That’s not going to happen, and not because it’s rained for the past three days.
The coronavirus pandemic has not only canceled today’s track meet, but the home meets on March 25 and April 29, the Cosmopolitan Meet at William Fleming on May 1 and 2, the Region 3D meet in Christiansburg next week and the state Class 3 meet on June 5 and 6.
That’s disappointing for the members of the William Byrd track team, especially the 19 seniors. The Terriers had five girls and 14 boys who were looking forward to their senior season on the Byrd team.
“The William Byrd High School outdoor track and field team was looking to have a great outdoor season before it was ended by the pandemic,” said Byrd girls’ coach James Pannell. “Many seniors were looking forward to ending their track and field season on a very high note after coming off a second-place regional placing in the 2019-2020 indoor track and field season.”
Pannell had five seniors on the girls’ team, Erin Wienke, Brynn Tardy, Evie Laherty, Sloane Morton and Christina Reamey. Wienke and Tardy were looking to have a very good outdoor track season, looking to better their times from last outdoor track season. Morton was looking to make it back to the State Championship in the discus and possibly the shot after qualifying for the Outdoor State Championships last year.
Men’s coach Andrew Decoster was hoping to have another season of personal records broken after a positive indoor track and field season. Seniors Travon Calloway and John Catron were poised to have another good year in the throwing events while Cameron Dalton and Jayden Glass were state qualifiers for the indoor track and field championship. Another senior, Eli West, was a state qualifier for the long jump last year in the outdoor state championships and also this past indoor track and field state championship.
Other seniors looking to have a great season were Cade Crawford, Zach Figart, Mason Gunn, Cameron Harshbarger, Alec Humphries, Landon Johnson, Keaton Lyle, Jake Marcus, and Landon Young.
“All of these senior student athletes have a been a wonderful addition to the track and field team these past season,” said Pannell. “Some of them have been running track for William Byrd since the middle school and have been great competitors and teammates.”
