Photo provided by Lainey Goldstein ’24

Missing Sol Lee’ 24, the Rosary Stanford crew smiles for a picture after a successful meet.

At the beginning of spring break, eight Rosary Track and Field athletes made the drive up to Stanford University for an invitational meet. The group included freshman Riyanna Meaders; sophomores Jada Faison, Amaya Faison and Justine Wilson; and seniors Paige Sorensen, Milan Smith, Sol Lee, and Lainey Goldstein. Early on Thursday morning, all of us met at the Rosary van, ready for the six-hour drive to our hotel.

Surprisingly, the ride was pretty uneventful. It was a continuous cycle of sleeping, waking up and talking, and then falling back to sleep again. Our six-hour drive turned into eight hours after we decided to stop and eat lunch at Jamba Juice and The Habit. Once we finally arrived at our hotel, we split up into our rooms and began unpacking. 

After all of us were dressed for dinner, we made the five-minute walk to the steakhouse down the street, Kincaid’s. The food was delicious, and we all talked and laughed for the rest of dinner. The next morning we all went to the team breakfast at the hotel and discussed the plans for the rest of the day.

Sol and Paige ran a few of their events in the Friday Stanford meet. Sol performed in the long jump, and Paige ran in the 400m hurdles. Sol ended up placing fourth overall, and Paige described running her event: “It was my first time running the 400m hurdles. It was exciting and scary, but I did better than I thought I would. It was super fun, and I would do it again.”

Everyone who went on Friday did well, especially since they had to run and jump in the rain. Because of the rainy weather, the coaches didn’t want the people who weren’t running on Friday to attend, so we had to find something to do for the hours we would be stuck in the hotel. A parent ended up offering to drive us to the little shopping center about ten minutes away from Stanford, so we explored for the next few hours, looking in shops and enjoying food from Pressed Juicry and Wetzel’s Pretzels, before making our way back to the hotel. 

 The Saturday Stanford meet was our big day, and we all arrived early so that the 4 x 100m relay could warm up. They had an amazing race, and ended up making it to the final round in the meet. They placed third in the prelim, which is the race to qualify for the finals, and then placed third overall in the finals. As the day went on, each of our Rosary girls did exceptionally well. Sol, Milan and Justine each ran the open 100m, and Justine made it to the final round of this race, running a PR. Paige ran the 100m hurdles and didn’t fall during the race, which is a huge accomplishment for her since she usually falls during a hurdle race. The day ended with our 4 x 400m relay and we won first in our heat. Justine shared, “I had lost of fun, and I loved staying with the seniors, I think it brought us closer, and it sucks to see them go.”

It was a successful meet for all of us, and we all enjoyed bonding with each other and our coaches. The coaches explained that they planned this trip because a lot of the seniors who have been on the team since freshman year are leaving in just a few months. They wanted us to make some memories before we all go our separate ways, and in that way, the trip was also successful.