After last year’s outdoor track season when Sophomore Michael Bowker broke the Morgan record for mile time with a 4:35, this year’s indoor track season brings a lot of expectations for not only Bowker but also for senior Owen Lombardi. Last year they both saw immense success in the mile and they were both able to get impressive numbers off of their times.

“Bowker is another sophomore that will be making waves in the shoreline conference in indoor track. As a freshman he already broke the school record for fastest 1600m time with a time of 4:55,” said Coach Jaime “Tone” Serrano, this will be Coach Tone’s second year coaching the team, but unfortunately he has not been able to make their first couple of practices.

Owen is another runner that Coach Tone has high expectations for. Coach Tone thinks that both of these runners will be able to make waves in the shoreline conference.

“Owen Lombardi is another distance runner that I have high expectations for this season. Owen broke into the top 10 for the 1600m record for the school. I believe by the end of the season with hard work he can climb his way up and break into the top 5,” said Coach Tone.

Coach Tone has been constantly pushing these 2 to be their absolute best and train their absolute hardest. He sees the potential in both of them and wants to grow that and create 2 amazing runners.

“Bowker has made such strides since his indoor season last year. He would barely try at practice and then go to the meet and do well. Then when outdoor came along I knew his potential so constantly giving him goals and times to reach for was the way to get him to train even harder,” said Coach Tone.

Some of the Impressive numbers Bowker put up were breaking 5:00 his freshman year of high school. His main goal this year is to make another impressive improvement of breaking 4:30.

“My main goal for the mile is breaking sub 4:20. I don’t know if it’s doable this year. I think I’ll definitely break 4:30, but 4:20 is a long term goal for me,” said Bowker.

He does the same thing for Lombardi and sees a lot of potential in his determination to be the absolute best he can be.

“Owen has come a long way and I will be looking for him to continue to grow this season. His determination to prove to himself and others that he can do it will make him go places this season,” said Tone.

During last year’s indoor season Lombardi was able to break 5:30 in his mile run. Lombardi made a 39 second improvement throughout his indoor career, going from a 6:00 to a 5:21 mile time.

Not only does Tone hope for great success for these 2 athletes but the team as a whole.

“My goal this season is to set times, heights, or distances for each athlete to try to achieve and have them accomplish that goal,” said Tone.

In indoor track success is not necessarily defined the same as in other sports and sometimes it is hard to define what success is for a coach, but coach Tone seems to have it mapped out for himself.

“What defines me as a coach of a team that competes more as individuals is about a blend of a couple things. Such as performance gains (wins/ PR’s), athlete development, and positive team environment. Not all athletes are on the same level and track is about beating the clock. Athletes understand that success for them should be measured on what they get as a time and continue to try to beat that time.”