The South Tahoe track and field team competed in its first meet of the season Saturday, March 18, at the Yerington Relays in Nevada.

Overall, the girls placed sixth out of 14 teams, while the boys placed 12th out of 15 teams.

“They have been working hard,” said South Tahoe coach Hannah Greenstreet. “They really have a sense of togetherness and team spirit and I value that a lot in them. I want them to start to see some more progress. I hope to see it go up from here.”

Senior Maya Brosch helped the women capture their spot in the top 10 with her first place finishes in the 200 dash, 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles. She finished with times of 26.98, 16.71 and 46.06 seconds, respectively. Freshman Carissa Buchholz stepped up with her first place finish of 5:43.06 in the 1600 and her fifth place finish of 2:37.33 in the 800 meters. Junior Theresa Sandborn added some more points for the girls team with her seventh place finish of 56.75 in the 300 hurdles.

The boys team struggled a little more to find top finishes, but they were able to fare decently in several events. The 4X800 relay performance delivered by David Holmes, Christopher Hoefer, Nolan Huff and Calvin Holmes resulted in a seventh place finish. The group completed the race with a time of 9:45.99. Junior Jackson Binns placed eighth in the 1.6-kilogram discus with his throw of 98-feet and sophomore Ryan Newberger placed 10th in 300 hurdles with his time of 46.44.

Many spring sports have had to cope with not having a place to practice due to all the snow and that has impacted performance.

“At this point, this was our second time on the track and for some of them it was the first time,” said Greenstreet. “We definitely had a challenge and a struggle with the weather, not being able to get started on the track surface right away.” Greenstreet said the team has had to rely on indoor training and running on pavement to cope with limited track availability. The team also has some young talent and newcomers on the roster.

“A good 30-percent of our team is either new to track or new to high school track,” said Greenstreet. “It [the meet] was more like getting your toes wet. We had some great surprise improvements from last year to this year in some of our veterans.”

Greenstreet said this meet provided the team a chance to evaluate itself and look at ways to improve. “Our team motto is ‘work like you mean it,’ and that’s always a baseline for me,” said Greenstreet. “If every kid is working like they mean it then we’re getting somewhere.”

The Vikings will travel to Fallon March 25 for the 45th annual Fallon Elks invitational.