After a strong finish to the indoor season, the Lakeland High School track and field team is refocusing for the outdoor season.

The Lakeland High School track and field team is coming off of an indoor season where they brought home their second indoor region championship in the last three years on the boys’ side. Things didn’t go as planned in the state meet because of a few injuries; however, Coach Brian Rountree feels like his team is healthy again and refocused on the same mission for the outdoor season.

“We’ve got one outdoor meet under our belt, and we feel good,” Rountree said. “We just want to take things slow until we get to that point where we want to be at our best. We want to keep everybody healthy for when it’s time to make a run. Regroup, refocus and just continue to get better.”

Lakeland will be out for retribution this outdoor season. Last year, the team came within two points of winning an outdoor state title. Technicalities and weather delays helped contribute to their downfall.

“We pretty much have the same mindset from last season,” Rountree said. “We pretty much know what we can do when we get rolling. Now it’s just all about getting better strength-wise and technical-wise so that we can be at our best later on in the season.”

The most important thing for Lakeland this spring is maintaining the athletes’ health. The Cavs believe if they stay healthy, they can compete at the top of Class 3A. So, throughout the outdoor meets until championship season some of the top athletes will compete hard but scale back in certain things to be fresher when its time. For the most part, Lakeland has returned the same team on both the boys’ and girls’ side.

Lakeland competed in the first outdoor meet of the season with fellow Southeastern District teams last week. The boys placed seventh, and the girls placed fifth. Teshun Pierre took first in the triple and long jumps, and Jeshawn Walker took first in the 800-meter run. On the girls’ side, Loren Biggs placed first in the 100-meter dash.

The Cavs will host the second district outdoor meet at 2 p.m. Wednesday.