The Upper Dublin girls’ track & field team captured the SOL Liberty Division title to cap a remarkable journey for the team’s seniors, who have not lost in league competition since they joined the team as freshmen. (Photos provided by Upper Dublin track & field for the sponsored article below.)
By Craig Ostroff
They’ll remember their last year of high school for a multitude of reasons, not all of them positive.
But the senior members of Upper Dublin girls’ track and field team made sure their final season on the athletic fields was unforgettable in all the best ways possible.
While the pandemic may have made have made for an unpredictable and oftentimes difficult 2020-21 school year, the outdoor track season proceeded exactly the way the Flying Cardinals had hoped. And when the team accumulated 185 points (81 points ahead of second-place Quakertown) in a dominating effort in last weekend’s Liberty Division Championships, it sealed a remarkable—and unique—achievement for the senior class, who remained undefeated in dual meets and league championships throughout their entire high school career.
The 11-member class—Abbey Broderick, Caitlin Burmester, Jazmyn Brown, Mikayla DeMichele, Maura Dianno, Sarah Eskew, Rachel Kim, Peyton Kullman, Lillian Loi, Emma McGinty, and Lillianna Noble—will hang up their cleats having set the foundation for years of future successes for the team.
“I think even with everything happening, we were able to keep that mindset of ‘We still have goals and things to reach,’” said Eskew, who will run track and cross country at Rider University next year. “We wanted to win the league and stay undefeated.
“To have accomplished that, it’s awesome, it’s almost unheard of, and it’s so exciting that we got to do it. I’m so proud of everyone on this team, because it’s always been about everyone contributing. It’s not just the distance girls or sprints or throwers. Everyone has to have done well in their respective events for us to have come this far.”
In putting an exclamation point on their league careers with the recent Liberty Division Championship, Upper Dublin racked up seven first-place finishes, including three District 1 Class AAA qualifying times (Peyton Kullman, 16.03 in the 100m hurdles; 46.22 in the 300m hurdles; Maura Dianno 12.67 in the 100m dash; Caitlin Burmester also qualified with her third-place finish in the 800m run at 2:21.20) and a top-three sweep in the 1600m run (1. Burmester, 2. Eskew, 3. Lena Shaddinger).
Despite having lost their junior season to the pandemic, the Cardinal seniors never lost sight of their undefeated goal and helped unite this year’s squad into a family.
“In a year like this, for everyone to buy into what we were trying to do, it was incredible,” said Dianno, who will take her academic and athletic talents to Emory University in the fall. “We’ve had this one goal we’ve been working toward for four years now, and I really have to give so much credit to my fellow seniors for keeping the team working hard and staying focused. We really tried to establish the integrity and seriousness of staying dedicated, we held each other accountable for workouts.
“Last year was difficult, and not knowing if we’d even have our senior season was tough, but my attitude, and I think all the seniors’ attitude, was ‘If I do get the chance to go out there one more time, I’m going to go leave it all out there and give the best performances of my high school career.’ Throughout the year, the seniors stayed on top of things, made sure everyone stayed engaged, ran Zoom meetings, and everyone bought into it. We knew that whatever was going to happen with this season, we’d be ready for it.”
It was a fitting finale for a class that changed the landscape of the Liberty Division from its freshman season. After years of dominance from the likes of Cheltenham, Quakertown, and Wissahickon, the Class of 2021 helped turn the tide from the moment they stepped onto the track.
“It’s been a process to build the program to where it is now,” said longtime Cardinals’ track and field head coach Matt Dwyer. “When I first started, Cheltenham was the top team. Our focus was to go get them and win that title.
“This class, right off the bat they made an impact for us. That season, we didn’t have a ton of expectations, but they got to come in and learn from that year’s senior class what high school track was all about. And they were key in that first breakthrough. The next year, it became the goal to defend that title, and as sophomores, they all started to play bigger and bigger roles. This year, they hadn’t lost a league meet in their high school career. Even though there was no season last year, we hadn’t lost the title, it was still our title to defend, so that was the goal again.”
And while the Cardinals’ talent is readily apparent from the results, the seniors proved to be invaluable for a team on which two classes had never experienced high school track.
“What they accomplished this year is 100 percent a testimony to who they are as kids and as leaders,” Dwyer said. “It’s been a trying year, to say the least, with schoolwork and with workouts and practices. But I think they saw practices and workouts as a chance to see their friends and get that joy every day in getting back to normalcy. They invested four years in this program, and they were not going to let it slip at this point.
“Having them is like having extra coaches out there. If I’m helping out one group, I can talk to Peyton and she’ll get the runners, jumpers, and hurdlers started on their drills. But the younger kids also see that the seniors don’t hesitate to jump in to get those extra points in meets. In the league meet, they didn’t run just one or two events, they were willing to say, ‘We’ll do three, four events, to get those extra points to make sure the team wins.’ It’s been a pleasure being able to coach them for four years. This can be a team sport if you let it be. And they have made it that. They ingrain it in younger kids, and they start following the lead the seniors have set.”
While all the seniors have been crucial in establishing the family atmosphere and uniting the team, Dwyer singled out Broderick for her efforts this season.
“Abbey is really the glue that holds the team together,” he said. “You tend to have that core group of scorers that’s 15 to 20 deep, but then there are still 35 other girls who are working hard and trying to improve and make an impact. Abbey is the one who bridges the gap. She does a phenomenal job of making sure everyone is on the same page, that everyone has an important place on the team.”
“I definitely am happy I got to take on that role,” Broderick said. “Sometimes you can feel like, ‘I’m not scoring, I’m not as important,’ but everyone is important. Even if they’re not coming in first or second, you can still get those points, especially in the league meet. Or they’re working hard and trying to get better so they can move into those spots. I was so happy to be able to help them with that.
“And we’re seeing everyone step up as the season has gone on. Some of the new girls are crazy good, we have a lot of talent in that freshman and sophomore class. And the juniors are turning into good leaders as well.”
And while Dwyer is quick to deflect any credit for the successes of the team, the seniors are just as quick to praise the coach who sets the tone as far as attitude, dedication, and camaraderie.
“Coach Dwyer is a huge part of everything we’ve done,” Dianno said. “Seeing him put everything into this and dedicating himself to the team and each individual athlete whether you’re JV or varsity. He’s dedicated everything to everyone, he inspires us to want to win. He deals with challenges really well, things you can’t predict happening like injuries or through the quarantine, he’s the one who keeps us calm and helps us through those challenges.”
“We wouldn’t be where we are without Coach Dwyer,” Kullman said. “He’s played such a big role in everything we’ve done. The time and effort he puts into training and workouts, and setting us up to peak at the right meet, that’s all him. And he’s always encouraging us and keeping us all driven, during the season and even as we had the shutdowns and didn’t know when we’d be able to be back. He kept us motivated and made sure we all kept focused on our goals.”
For Kullman, the family atmosphere of the track and field team holds an additional meaning. The University of Nebraska-bound senior has also had the opportunity to share her track successes with her siblings.
“One of the coolest parts about track for me was that I was able to run with two of my sisters during my freshman and sophomore years, and I was able to run with my younger sister this year,” she said. “To be able to share the success with them is really special.”
It will fall to the likes of Kullman’s younger sister Mason and the rest of the returning athletes to extend the streak that the current senior class has established. But the legacy of the Class of 2021 will reach beyond just wins and losses.
For their senior culminating project, Dianno, Broderick and Burmester created and ran the inaugural Cardinal Classic, a track meet for local athletes in kindergarten through sixth grade. The trio was responsible for every aspect of the event, garnering sponsors, finding volunteers (the entire Cardinal track team was eager to be counted among the helpers), getting a timing system, and running the meet itself.
In addition to introducing the 200 youngsters who participated to the joy of track and field, the event served as a fundraiser and was able to donate
$1,300 to Sara’s Smiles Foundation, a local organization dedicated to assisting children who are battling cancer. Several juniors have already stepped forward to organize next year’s event for their culminating project in what the team hopes will become an annual tradition that will continue long after the current crop of students have graduated.
“I was always privileged enough to have track, and I know not everyone has access,” Dianno said. “It’s always been such a big part of my life and my family’s life, because my dad was my coach for eight years. To see kids have fun and ask me how they can get involved is a great experience.
“Three of the juniors said they were going to take it over and three sophomores after that. We don’t want to let this tradition die. We want to make it bigger and bigger, and I hope to come back in 10 years to the 10th one.”
“It was amazing to be able to share our love of track with the kids with them and show them how much fun it is,” added Broderick, who will attend University of Rhode Island in the fall. “It was a big success, and we raised a lot more money than we thought we were going to, so we were really proud of that.
“It was a lot of work, but we all thought it turned out well. And it was a team effort. All the girls on the track team were there and were such a big help.”
Of course, the senior class will also leave the 2021-22 iteration of the team with big shoes to fill. And a lot of pressure to perform up the standards—both as athletes and leaders—that they helped establish.
“I’ve had some great senior classes the last few years, but this group … we lose a ton in terms of leadership, mental toughness, execution,” Dwyer said. “I knew every meet what these seniors would give us. I can pen it in what the performance was going to be, they’ve been that consistent and reliable.
“That’s a lot for the others to live up to. But I’ve been impressed with the way the freshmen and sophomores have developed, our juniors are really stepping up at this point. I think with the COVID year last year, it took the juniors a little bit of time to realize they’re not freshmen anymore, and they really came on as the season progressed. I think we’re going to have a mixed bag next year. We relied heavily on our seniors this year, but we’ve got a strong group of sophomores and freshmen, so I think you’re going to see people stepping up from seniors down to freshmen.”
The soon-to-be graduates will also have their eyes on the returning athletes. They’ve laid the foundation, but long league winning streaks are nothing new to Upper Dublin girls’ athletics, and there’s still a long way to go if the Cardinals want to dominate the league in the same manner as the girls’ swimming and diving team, which won its 32nd consecutive league title this year.
“I’m still confident in the girls we’ll have coming back and I’m so excited to watch this year’s juniors next year in their senior season and watch the younger kids grow,” Eskew said. “There’s so much potential, I can’t wait to see what they can do the next few years.”
“I see myself coming back a lot,” Dianno said. “When I finished my races at SOLs, a bunch of my old teammates were there waiting for me at the finish line. This is a family and a community and it’s been really supportive to me so I hope to keep giving back and coming back.
“They’re going to be a young team next year but a determined team. I really do think they saw how it feels to win a league championship and see the groundwork we laid down. I think they’re ready to continue. They have the talent and right mindset. I know they can do it.”
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