It’s spring: the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and students are gasping for breath as they run another two miles. Yep, it sure is track season.

This year's track team so far continued the unfortunate trend of declining boys’ participation (despite national trends to the contrary), while the rate of girls participating holds steady from previous years.

As always, the starting gun sounds on track season with a scrimmage meet against other schools in the league. This scrimmage was a bit out-of-the-ordinary as it is one of only two home meets Beaver Area will host this year.

The scrimmage was against Burgettstown but the results did not count toward the team's record, with everyone there to have fun and get back in shape.

As for meets that matter, Beaver Area was able to best Ambridge at their home meet March 30, but came in second behind New Castle and ahead of Central Valley at a tri-meet meet April 7. New Castle hosted the event.

According to runner extraordinaire junior Krystof Purtell, the team couldn’t be doing much better.

"Team chemistry is flying right now. We have some people doing really well. We'll be world champs, baby," Purtell predicted.

To aid in their continued chemistry, a new track tradition was started recently at the Ambridge meet. Now, after every meet, an oversized golden necklace (see picture below) is awarded to the runner with the most significant improvement over their personal best time. The most recent winner of the award was junior Adam Klenovich.

I am assured by numerous sources that the necklace is solid gold and not, in fact, spray painted.

Check back with the ECHO May 3 to read about the team's results at their first invitational of the season.