At the Metro West Conference meet, junior Nyah Johnson, eighth grader Freya Wade, sophomore Sidney Hayenga and junior Anna Jennissen, the members of Park’s girls’ 4×200 team, defeated the school record for the 4×200 relay by two seconds.

“Right after I finished I was looking around, and I looked at my coaches. Then they looked at me with their arms wide, and (my coach) ran at me saying that we beat the record,” Johnson said. “I ran after my teammates, and we started all hugging and we were crying. It was all just amazing.”

Park placed second at the Metro West Conference meet May 16, 17 points behind Bloomington Jefferson, according to Johnson.

“We’re still really happy. We were third last year, so it’s still a step up,” Johnson said.

Sprints coach Lekpea Kordah said breaking the school record had been a goal for the girls since the 2017 season.

“I was really excited for them because we tried to get it last year, and I remembered, towards the end of the banquet, we talked about me coming back to make sure that we could get the record before I’m done coaching,” Kordah said.

According to Johnson, the team worked on their handoffs and endurance throughout the season.

“We have been doing a lot of work in handoffs and a lot of endurance work to make sure that we can keep our speed throughout the whole race,” Johnson said.

Junior captain Anna Jennissen said their success as a team is because of their work ethic and determination to achieve their goals.

“We’re really good at showing up at practice and constantly working those handoffs, and we have the mentality of wanting to get there and do better,” Jennissen said.

According to Kordah, trust is essential to the success of a relay team.

“The one big thing about relays is you have to have good team chemistry. To have a good chemistry makes this race so much easier,” Kordah said.

Johnson said two factors in their performance at the Conference meet were the weather and their motivation.

“We were really excited for conference, we knew that it was all good competition, and they were all good people to run against,” Johnson said. “The heat also made us really relaxed, our muscles nice and loose, even though it was really hot, and it made everything feel really smooth.”

According to Johnson, moving into Sections the team hopes to continue to improve their times.“Our goals as we move on to our sections is to beat our record again, and we want to still get better so hopefully we can do it again,” Johnson said.

The Sections meet was 3:45 May 29 and 5:30 May 30 at Orono High School.