It may be spring break, but local track and field teams aren’t taking it easy.
Bayfield High School will host the Bayfield Quad at 9 a.m. Saturday at Wolverine Country Stadium.
Even though it’s called a quad, there will be six teams attending.
Dolores, Durango, Ignacio, Mancos and Pagosa Springs will round out the field of competition. BHS and IHS currently are on their spring break, so they won’t have their full squads.
“The intention of the meet was to have something for the kids who are going to be here and have a nice (state) qualifier and not have to go to either Cedar Ridge or Sangre de Cristo, which is quite a ways away,” BHS head coach Sherry Kimball said. “It was an easy way to get all the stragglers together.”
It will be the second qualifier of the season for IHS after the Bobcats previously competed in Aztec.
“My mom is the head coach at Bayfield, so we planned a lot of this stuff together,” IHS head coach Tony Kimball said. “We’re going to have a very, very small squad there (Saturday) – as many kids that show up. We’ll hope for some good performances, but we’re not expecting anything big.”
DHS isn’t on spring break and is bringing its full team to Bayfield, but the Demons are taking a relaxed approach, as well.
“It’s a lighthearted meet,” DHS head coach David McMillan said. “We can’t go weekend after weekend with high intensity.”
The plan is to run the older varsity competitors early and let younger kids take over as the day progresses.
Those juniors and seniors have other plans for the evening.
“The strategy is to get them in, get them a few races and get them out before prom,” McMillan said. “That’s why we scheduled a local meet; we didn’t want to be in Grand Junction or Denver on prom night.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be some serious racing, though.
McMillan will be running different relays head to head to determine who will compete at the Arcadia Invitational next Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles, Calif.
“There’ll be some serious racing, but we’re not stacking the meet to win every event,” McMillan said.
McMillan did stress the importance of the meet for the Demons’ jumpers, though.
“It’s a big meet for our jumpers and our vaulters,” he said. “Its a great runway.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
