The Cabrini College track team currently has nationally ranked team members, the Eastern College Athletic Conference meet in the near future and players competing in the nationals. The team which has 22-25 members in total, is doing as well as the coaches had expected in its current season.
Head Coach Tom O’Hora explained that the team will be going to the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference Championship for the first time this year. In preparation for the championship, O’Hora said, “We are practicing everyday and doing what we normally do, nothing out of the ordinary. Right now we are really concentrating on people going to the nationals and competing in the Eastern College Athletic Conference meets.”
O’Hora believes that the team will do very well in the ECACs among the 90 other schools that are involved.
The current setback that is plaguing the team is the lack of warm bodies willing to come out and compete. O’Hora said, “I know we are good enough to do very well in the PAC championship but we just need more people to compete in the events.” He explained that there are 18 events and for some events the team does not have enough competitors. Those are events that they will be receiving zero points for, which will hurt them in the end.
With this in mind, O’Hora encourages students to rise to the challenge and try out for the track team at Cabrini.
“Anyone can be a slug and never do anything but with participating, getting up and proving to yourself that you can do something when you were too afraid to try it in the first place, gives you pride, confidence and respect,” O’Hora said. “We believe there are large amounts of students on this campus that have played on sports teams at the high school level, that do not come out for the teams at the college level because they are nervous.”
Lauren Deas, a junior social work and English and communication major, said, “The season is going great so far. We are looking forward to the PAC but it is not until the outdoor season. We are a little more focused on the nationals and ECAC. We are trying to come out of the ECAC in the top three of Division III. We are a very confident team.”
Their confidence remains strong despite a few minor injuries. Deas suffered an injury with her shoulder, but it has not stopped her from qualifying as the second fastest in the country in the 60-meter-dash. Christiana Taylor, a freshman history major, suffered a hamstring injury and Dan Giang, a sophomore accounting major, suffered a sprained ankle early on in the season and will not be back until March.
Brian Zarley, a freshman exercise science and health promotion major, said, “The season for the men has been hampered a bit by injuries but overall we are doing pretty well. We aim higher than the PAC for track and field and our goal is the ECAC and NCAA meets.”
O’Hora’s main message was to encourage the students on campus to consider trying out for the team. He said, “Our team is very close and two years ago they did not even know each other. They do everything together and have learned from each other. It is a great learning experience.” Stating Bob Dylan’s famous lyric, “There is no success in failure and failure is no success at all,” O’Hora said that trying and failing is better than not trying at all and you will have fun doing so.
