Central Bucks South girls’ track and field celebrated the team’s five seniors on Saturday. To have your team’s senior celebration posted on the web site, send photos/info to SuburbanOneSports@comcast.net. (Photo provided by CB South Lady Titans Track & Field)
On Saturday June 6, several members of the Central Bucks South Lady Titans Track & Field team celebrated their senior leaders.
Pictured from left are the five CB South seniors and where they will be attending college next year:
Safiya Dodoo (sprints), University of Buffalo Honors College
Julia Magee (hurdles), Bloomsburg University, joining Cross Country/Track team
Tara Wussler (throws), Penn State University
Alyssa Irvin (mid-distance), North Carolina State University Army ROTC program
Marlena Tosti (sprints), James Madison University
Congratulations and best of luck to all the ladies in their future. Titan for Life!
Coach Jason Gable said: “Missing the final season of their senior year has definitely taught them how to deal with some very bittersweet sort of things. Like a lot of the programs in our area, it’s not just a one-season track program. We start in the fall in the weight room, and those who do cross country start over the summer, so the spring season is the culmination of close to a year of training and hard work. Everybody has goals for winter track, but a lot of teams, especially in our area with how competitive we are – all of our goals are set for outdoor, for league and districts and states.
“Every year we always go off of that high of indoor states getting ready for the spring season – the training is going to kick in now, this is when we’re going to start competing on a regular basis, we’re going to start seeing the results of all the hard work, and this spring it just wasn’t there. They weren’t able to have that opportunity. We talked a lot. Me and coach (Michael) Cox, coach (Justin) Crump, coach (Maureen) Riley, coach (Loretto) Fantini – we talked with the athletes a lot, not only how to feel about it but how to deal with it. Especially with these seniors, it’s especially hard for them because not all of them are going to be competing in college. This was it. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
“That probably took about a month, and after that, everyone started to come around and started saying – ‘All right, we’re going to focus on the positive.’ Literally, once we get the green light, we’re going to meet back at the track. We’re going to do some running around the track, we’re going to time them in some events. South, West and East – we all set up that virtual track meet that a good number of them competed in, and that was something to tide them over. That was like a Band-Aid on a knife wound. It was something to get us through the time. It’s hard for me to put into words how to feel about this and how to present it to the kids because nobody’s ever been through this before. No one knows how to handle this, but we talked at least two times a week with the whole team and with the seniors and the underclassmen. We survived it, but it’s hard to put a word around it.
“One day I got on with the underclassmen and asked – ‘Are you thinking of doing anything for the seniors?’ Right away the girls said, ‘We already got money collected for gifts, we’re going to surprise them and meet them somewhere.’ This is something that was planned from the get-go on the girls’ side, and that was very exciting. It was very heartwarming to know that they’re teenagers taking the initiative to think of their captains and their seniors at a time like that, so it was very, very exciting. The seniors were so surprised by it, and they were super happy with that little event that they were able to get together in a proper way and even just see each other.
“There were only five seniors, but there was an increase this year in the girls’ numbers. We had a lot of new ninth and 10th grade girls coming in, and these seniors right away took the initiative to make the team feel like a family. They very quickly included everyone. Even in spring with all of this happening, they were very quick to contact each other via email, text messaging or contacting the girls’ parents to get ahold of them. They were very, very quick to gather the new girls together, show what kind of team that we are and the togetherness of it almost from a motherly aspect.
“They also did it for the guys too. The guys and girls teams are very close, and these senior girls would be with the guys at practice and got to know a lot of the new guys too. It wasn’t just a singular type of unit. It was an entire boys and girls team. One of the seniors – Julia Magee – is going to compete in college, so she’s super excited to continue her career. Right away she’s into her training, and she’s already been in conversation with me how to do the summer training to be ready for next year. The other four girls are missing it – they can’t wait to go for a run with everyone again, not even necessarily compete but to do something track related with their teammates one more time.”
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