Coasting through Monument Square and up the subsequent looming hill, you can find a mix of indoor track athletes preparing for their upcoming meets soon to come. The brisk air rips their faces, turning them red, neither slowing them down nor deterring their motivation.This is merely one of the many reasons why this year’s indoor track team has had such an award worthy season.

Breaking personal, school, and team records, the boys 4 x 400 team stood out from the rest of this year’s indoor track team. Under new head coach Gerald Finnegan, the indoor team has found a plethora of success in sending multiple runners and teams to the state meet in Dartmouth. 

The 4 x 400m team composed of seniors Marcus McCammack, Henry Bruneau, Matt McLaughlin, and Nate McEvoy were one of the HB teams to make it to states. Despite never previously running together, and mixing lineups throughout the season, the group of seniors were able to still push through this adversity.

 “This team was able to get close because there were only five or six of us [seniors] so we ran a lot together,” Bruneau ‘23 remarked. The team’s ability to overcome these challenges and be so successful can be directly connected to their success. 

This relay team is a tight knit group too and almost all of them highlight one moment in particular as their biggest accomplishment during the season, the state meet. 

“States were surreal,” senior Matt McLaughlin said. “Off the bat we were at a disadvantage because we had no competition to run against. We were the fastest seed in our heat.” 

Not letting this affect them, HB finished second in the meet for the 400m relays advancing to New Englands in early March. 

Although the team may highlight this as their biggest accomplishment, a race weeks earlier may have topped it. Arriving at Plymouth after a long, draining bus ride, the runners already started at a disadvantage. As their race slowly grew closer to its start, the athletes were locked into their zone. 

After the gunshot rang throughout the stadium and the athletes launched off their starting positions, HB started off strong. When it was all said and done, though, Nate McEvoy ‘23 had crossed the finish line and HB had topped their previous seasons best with a school record time of 3 minutes 40.93 seconds. 

Beating the record twice was impressive and the key component the team can attest to their success is “Practice. Every Friday we practice handoffs so we just have that chemistry,” said McCammack ‘23. That chemistry is what other teams simply can’t match and is a key factor in HB’s success this year