Following a disappointing spring season prior, the Lakeland Regional High School track and field team came back for redemption in the 2025 season. Last season, the team just missed winning the conference title, but this year the team worked immensely hard to achieve it.
The meet schedule for the 2025 season was about two weeks earlier than the 2024 season, which prompted the team to have to hit their best times and marks earlier in the season. To achieve this, the team worked hard on the track resulting in the team going undefeated in their regular dual meet season.
While the girls won every meet, there were still major challenges faced, the biggest one being the weather. Captain and senior Rebekah Setti claimed that, “almost every meet it rained and was cold.” However, their record did not show their struggle.
During the championship season the team was able to win two out of the four major championships. The girls won the Passaic County Relay and Big North Independence Conference Championships. Both wins were won by a landslide, each being by at least 20 points. Prominent point scorers from these meets came from the hurdlers, throwers, and middle distance groups.
The conference win was Head Coach Melissa Walker’s first individual championship win. Coach Walker told the Ledger that the girls worked extremely hard in order to achieve the win so early in the season.
Another challenge that the team has in meets is being able to compete and stay close with the larger teams like Passaic County Tech. Although the team was not able to achieve the county title, multiple personal records were broken.
The team seems optimistic about the team’s abilities for next year. With leading point scorers like junior Hope Walker, sophomore Jaelynn Vivanco, and freshman Addison Parker the team is sure to compete closely with the rest of the conference and county.
However, the team is losing a tremendous amount of valuable seniors. Seniors Setti, Laiana Anderson, and Catherine Wiley each score a significant amount of points for the team on the running side. On the throwers side, seniors Isabella Andrulli and Thalia Bennett dominate the throwing competition at every single meet that they go to.
