The girls track and field program is sending six athletes to compete in the state qualifier meet this weekend after sending three girls in 2025.

The girls top qualifier is the 4 X 800 team consisting of Maria G. (11), Sophia P. (10), Emma G. (7) and Kaelyn M. (7). Also qualifying for the River Hawks is Molly G. (11) in the 100H, and Kayla C. (12) in the Pentathlon. All of the qualifiers are moving forward off of their season’s best performances last week at the Section V Championships.

Maria G., Sophia P., and Emma G. all opted out of competing in their individual competitions to focus on the 4 X 800 and continue their incredible ascent up the leaderboard: 

• 05/29/2025 Sectionals 10:02.38 3rd fastest all time performance

• 5/22/2025 League Championships 10:28.61 10th fastest all time performance

• 5/20/2025 Pavilion League Meet, 10:45.04

• 4/25/2025 Home meet, 11:19.24

“All credit goes to our girls and their faith in each other and the courage they run with,” said Josh Williams Avon Girls Track Head coach. “When this is all said and done these girls are going to take this experience into their other sports and into their lives and be better as a result, and that’s the true magic. Working hard for something, learning to believe in yourself, and use that to find success in life.”

According to Williams at the halfway point he changed up the training plan when he started seeing his 7th grade call-ups begin to rise and find events that fit them. Kaelyn was initially focusing on sprints, and Emma was focusing on hurdles and long distance. As they found success in the middle distance he changed up their training plans to start hitting some specific marks.

“We had quite a few girls getting close to the 2:40 mark in the 800 and I knew if we could get them all to a meet together we would see our time drop,” said Williams, who is in his first year of Coaching Girls Track. “At the league championships we hit that mark by quite a bit and they all sort of saw the light.”

The girls followed it up with a spectacular race at Sectionals placing 2nd behind yearly powerhouse Bloomfield-Naples in the Class C1 finals, being beat by :02 with a time 10:02.

“The girls were all in, and our race intelligence IQ grew exponentially as a result of that performance,” said Williams, who has the girls running the 9th fastest time in all of Section V merged. “By the time the dust settled we realized what we had done. Which was dropping :43 seconds off our time in nine days while running the third fastest time in school history.”

“We’ve got four girls that touch the baton in this event but it goes beyond,” said Williams. “Megan K. was crucial early on in this process. We also have girls not competing in State Q’s running workouts and getting shoulder to shoulder with them to help them prepare for the physical stress of big races.”

With no seniors on the squad and two 7th graders, it’s a bright future for the Girls Track Program at Avon.

“Massive gains this year but you never know what next year brings, a lot can happen,” said Williams. “I’ve been telling them - this is something special and let’s be present now, we’re all here for a reason.”