Red Devils gear up for outdoor season

Allen Community College’s track team doesn’t have much time to reflect upon the team’s performance Friday and Saturday at the NJCAA Indoor Nationals.
The event, which ended the indoor track season (see results in Monday’s Register), yields to outdoor track. Allen’s first outdoors meet is March 14 in Winfield at the Southwestern Invite.
Head coach Vince DeGrado noted the team’s successes this season — 23 school records have been set so far — but sees room for improvement.
“As a whole, we didn’t compete as well (at nationals) as we competed at our regional and conference meet,” DeGrado said. “From our sprints and hurdles to distance runners, we didn’t duplicate our regional and conference performances. We looked very flat as a whole.”
Loathe to make excuses, DeGrado still wondered aloud if a late blast of wintry weather affected the team.
“I know we weren’t as aggressive the week before nationals like we wanted to be, but those are things we have to address and move forward,” he said. “It is a pretty simple fix with some training adjustments.
“I know I have to remind myself that the bigger picture is waiting for us during outdoor season. We just have to refocus ourselves and get back at grinding it out.”
DeGrado lauded the efforts of Gabby Ruiz, who helped Allen’s distance medley relay team set a school record about 30 minutes before running a 5k on her own and finishing fourth. Ruiz also ran the 3000-meter run later that night for a seventh-place finish.
Garrett Colglazer and Josh Whittaker reset the school record in the 1000-meter run minutes apart. Whittaker wound up with the new mark.
“I was very happy with their performances,” DeGrado said. “Rodrick Simmons keeps getting better with each race.”
The women’s team scored 12 points to finish 17th overall. The men didn’t score at the national meet.
“We’re just looking to regroup and get back to our winning ways,” DeGrado said. “We have a good understanding on where we need to focus our training and move forward. All in all, when you look at our indoor season, we had a very successful one.”