“Go, stick.”
It is the cadence used by athletes to signal the next athlete to start running in a relay, and to receive the baton. The call not only marks the passing of a baton from one teammate to the next, but also the continuation of a team’s hope for triumph.
SIS’s track team has used the call since they began competing in HHS’s track meets in the 2023-’24 season. Back then, the team had not seen much success. With barely any athletes and lack of spirit, SIS had an established reputation as the lowly underdogs.
“We never really were an established team,” Carson Park (12), 4-year track athlete, said. “Track at SIS has never had the respect other sports have had, and that led us to being a much smaller team compared to other international schools.
In spite of tradition, SIS has begun to change its reputation amid international schools in recent months. SIS athletes have started to consistently finish top 10 of rankings, along with multiple podium finishes and even 1st place. Notable achievements include Colin Park’s (12) 1st place finish at the 100-meter dash, blazing across the finish line with a time of 11.91 seconds, as well as Ryan Jin (10), finishing first in the 300-meter hurdles. Semin Chung (10), and Ryan Cha (10), are both high achieving athletes as well, with Semin finishing first in the 1600-meter and Ryan dominating the high jump with consistent leaps over 1.70m and never falling below the top 3.
Relay results are drastically improving also, with the new 4×800 school record being broken by Sean Kim (12), Joonho Kim (12), Roy Lee (10), and Alex Sung (10), where they finished a four-man 800 meter relay with a time of 9 minutes 23 seconds, placing second in the event. SIS’s strongest relay team, the 800m Short Medley Relay (SMR), a race consisting of a combination of two 100-meter dashes, a 200-meter run, and lastly 400-meter run, has also consistently finished in the top 3, with the difference between first and third always being less than 2 seconds.
Though this season will see the team only competing in a total of 4 meets, the team is showing more potential than ever, and as SIS continues to climb the rankings in Track & Field, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine that one day Track & Field becomes one of the school’s strongest sports.
“I’ve been with this team for all my years in high school,” Joonho Kim (12), Track athlete, said. “This season is one of the most promising that I have seen, and I truly have hope that we can solidify ourselves as not only one of the strongest teams at SIS, but also one of the fastest in KAIAC.”
