As the winter season comes to an end, let’s reflect on the astounding accomplishments of our Dragons in the past few months. This winter, the boys and girls track teams saw massive growth and found their stride with many qualifying for regionals and states. Similarly, Maggie Walker’s wrestling team headed to regionals the weekend of February 10th.

For many students, winter means the transition from cross country to indoor track. However, indoor track is quite a misleading name, as practice continues outdoors. Commenting on this sentiment, Caden VanValkenburg (‘24) said, “It’s only the chance of an indoor meet that gets people. ‘Winter track’ hardly makes people want to join.” Transitioning from the cross country season in the fall, many Dragons continued with indoor track to stay with their teammates, and as such, this season the track team saw a significant increase in team size. This led to “longer practices because of the size, but it was great to see new faces,” said Adrian Chenoweth (‘25). Demari Mitchell (‘26) joined Maggie Walker sports this winter with indoor track and began to appreciate how everyone forms a “good team family.” This attitude is shared by many others too. When asked about the role of teammates in continuing winter sports, Callie Kennedy (‘25), Kate Bowman (‘25), and Anna Widmer (‘25) all shared a similar sentiment: “That’s the only reason we run.”

However, the track team made it known they weren’t just here for fun. Members of the track team held themselves to high standards this season, rarely settling. “[The] winter season is always worse than spring,” said Chenoweth, backed up by Bowman, stating that winter track is “a little bit slower, so I feel like I definitely had higher expectations.” But even with that, the boys team is poised to compete in states. Furthermore, the girls team has also seen a great amount of success, taking home the 3B Regional Championship, with many of the girls qualifying for nationals.

Looking ahead to the spring season, many athletes had remarks about the nicer weather. Chenoweth and Widmer said, “[The winter weather] is a lot worse than the spring season, and warm weather is a huge plus.” During outdoor track, Chenoweth doesn’t plan on slowing down, hoping to “get a higher placement in the rankings,” and he is pushing for “number one in the 400 meter dash for all sophomores.” Likewise, Mitchell knows “that [he’ll] improve and [is] looking forward to that.”

The stars were out for Maggie Walker’s wrestling as well, as the team traveled to regionals with the hope of moving on to the state championship. For Chance Howell (‘25), his 21-7 record speaks for itself. This year, the wrestling team found many freshman wrestlers, with Howell saying, “They’ve got time and still some things to improve, but [they are] all pretty cool people.” Howell took home a second place at regionals and will be moving on to states. As a team, Ishaan Dave (‘24) feels they’ve done “just okay, but it was obviously going to be bigger teams from bigger schools [that we’re up against]. We’re not really a big public school, and at the end of the day, we’re doing the best we can, but we’ll let ‘em know we mean business.” Dave is readying for the 2023- 24 season; he hopes to “bulk up and come back even better next year.”

The Maggie Walker basketball team didn’t show any signs of stopping either. From a 2-15 record last year, they managed to move up to 7-10. This winter, the basketball team welcomed new members, such as Tyler DeHaven (‘26) who said, “Practice is probably the most fun.” Danny Gaskill (‘25), said that his favorite game was when they played against Goochland High School since he “got to play against [his] friends.” For Gaskill, the beauty of basketball being in the winter is that it’s never affected by weather. “I love playing indoor sports because it allows me to play sports year round.” Turnovers committed by the team were a large part in why our Dragons dropped a few games, as mentioned by DeHaven. However, through it all, the team still managed to improve and looks to retain all its underclassmen members going into next season.

Every day of the winter sports season, our Dragons fought through a long and demanding schedule, balancing school work and physical tolls. The future looks bright for Maggie Walker, and with the spring season on the horizon, our Dragons look forward to another strong season and a fresh chance to improve. All eyes are on our athletes, so let’s all shout “Go Dragons!” to show our love and support.