After his team recently competed in the second Southeastern District meet of the year, King’s Fork High School indoor track and field coach Shawn Warren is liking the strides the Bulldogs are showing.

Warren had several athletes gain personal records during those two meets.

“Overall I was pleased with our progression from the first meet to the second,” Warren said. “We didn’t do as well pointwise as I expected. When I sat down and looked at the results after the meet, it revealed that we had several athletes’ PR in various events. Ultimately that’s what we like to focus on, the athletes running a little faster and throwing a little further in each meet that we participate in.”

In the second SED meet, the boys’ team had some impressive finishes in the relays. The 4×200 relay team placed first, and with that finish they qualified for the 4A state meet. They also placed second in the 4×800, relay knocking seven seconds off of their time.

It’s also worth noting that the Bulldogs didn’t have all of their normal runners for the relay. They made substitutions and were still able to run a state-qualifying time. Their 4×200 relay team included Nasir Davis, Joel Iglesias, Garrett Heard and Bryan Walker. The 4×800 team included Marcus Ramos, Jack Van Straten, Tyler Gray and Shamond Smith.

“I was really pleasantly surprised at the performance of our 4x200m relay,” Warren said. Looking ahead, having five or six guys that we can plug into our relays and still run quality times is going to pay huge dividends for us.

“The 4×800 also did a great job, knocking seven full seconds off their previous season-best time. All four guys are underclassmen, which is very encouraging. I’m pretty confident that they will be running in the 8:45 range real soon, which will be a huge milestone for this group.”

Nasir Davis continued to show consistency as a sprinter for the Bulldogs, as he finished third in the 55-meter dash.

For the girls, King’s Fork has gotten solid performances out of Imani and Amari Urbanski, who finished first and third, respectively, in the high jump. Latoya Thomas finished third in the shot put.

With only two meets under their belt going into the new year Warren believes the Bulldogs’ best performances are to come.

“I would like to see our team as a whole embrace a tougher mental approach to running,” Warren said. “We talk about stepping out of our comfort zone in practice on a daily basis. You have to push yourself through some discomfort in order to get better.

“Physical conditioning of any kind is about applying stress to the body so that the body can adapt to that stress. We have to embrace that discomfort a little bit more as a team.”

However, the Bulldogs are building their confidence. As the athletes see their times improve, they can see that what they are doing in practice is translating to the meets.

King’s Fork starts the new year with a Conference 17 meet on Wednesday at Boo Williams Sportsplex.