It’s December and the Winter sports have begun, but for some Hazelwood Central students that doesn’t mean basketball, swimming, or wrestling. For the girls’ core track-and-field group, it means conditioning for Spring.

Basically, sprinting, core workouts, weight training, and more sprinting.

This year Coach Glenn Norwood and his group of 20 girls began training for the indoor and outdoor season in late September.

The team has many goals in that they plan to accomplish this season.

“I have a couple of goals for the team: make positive/productive citizens, get the seniors to college (scholarships), and to win the State Championship,” said Norwood.

“We really want to win state,” said sophomore Aisha Southern.

Training in the winter season consists of cold days on the track doing 100-meter to 200-meter sprint drills, pumping out multiple core workouts, and lifting weights. There are also days set aside for plyometrics.

According to some, the workouts are the only barrier to achieving their goals.

“The only limitations we have are not being able to workout on the track when it’s 45 degrees or below, and when there is lightning outside,” said senior Destiny Brown.

The girls all complain, but realize that they must do the training in order to achieve their goals.

“The workouts are really hard. There’s a lot of back-to-back workouts,” admitted sophomore Sydnei Lopez.

“The complaints will always be there, but without struggle, there’s no success so I try to instill the ‘fight, win, survive’ attitude in the team,” said Norwood.

The main focus for the team right now are the indoor track meets coming up.

Indoor meets consist of a 200-meter track instead of a 400-meter track which means the amount of events are limited. There are only a few field events: triple jump, long jump, high jump, and pole vaulting. All the other running distances remain the same besides the 100-meter dash which becomes a 60-meter dash on an indoor track.

The meets at SEMO on January 9th and Mizzou on January 16th are the ones Norwood encourages the girls to participate in since they will closely feature the competition they will have for the outdoor season in the Spring.

According to Norwood, there will also be a track meet held at Hazelwood Central on May 7th in 2016. This will be the first meet held at Central in years.

Senior Ariana Phillips is excited.

“It’s going to be sold out like the NBA playoffs, and having a meet at Central is going to feel great competing at home,” said Phillips.

Getting to be close to home and have family and friends come out and support them will be an exciting experience.

“I’m just excited we get to show the other students at school what we really are about,” said senior Symiah Fulton.