MONMOUTH – When the student and teacher parking lot is vacant for the day, Monmouth Academy’s upstart track team walks into a storage closet, trickles out of the adjacent gymnasium and goes to work.

Hurdles are arranged at the north end of the modest paved surface, placed with care to avoid speed bumps and manhole covers. Runners fan out along undulating Academy Road, preparing for the synthetic layouts in their future by pounding the pavement as they ascend and descend the hills of a residential area.

Jumpers dig their heels in a makeshift pit just shy of the hot top, landing where they would have been waist-deep in snow little more than a month ago. Throwers assemble on the rectangular, metal lid of a septic tank, using stones, free weights and broomsticks to simulate their competitive motions and strengthen muscle groups.

It’s another day in the infancy of a Class C program without even an informal track complex to call its own.

“They’ve been trying to get a track team started for about seven years, and every year it would be three, four, six, seven kids,” said Tom Menendez. “Last year I told the kids, ‘You get 30 people, I’ll coach it.’ So now I’m on the two-year plan.”

Menendez, a teacher at Monmouth Middle School, is a prominent track and field coach in Lewiston-Auburn. It was only two years ago that many students who attended his classes from fourth to eighth grade discovered his background and began their sales pitch.

Hopes are high as the academy enjoys an unprecedented growth spurt throughout its athletic department. Only three of the Mustangs’ current participants will graduate next month. Under the direction of Norm Thombs, coach of Monmouth’s club football program, middle school track started this spring. More than 30 kids practice with that team at the other end of the parking lot.

“We’re getting more and more opportunities around here. It’s not just soccer and baseball now,” said sophomore Brook Embrey, who is throwing the javelin, shot put and discus in hopes of building his strength and stamina for football. “That opens up a world to a lot of kids who don’t play soccer and baseball.”

Like football, whose future as a varsity program is about to go to the school board, track is technically a club program.

For all intents and purposes, however, the upstarts function as a varsity team. Monmouth is eligible for all the team points and individual titles it can accumulate at the Mountain Valley Conference and Class C state championship meets.

Long before those season-ending showcases, team members find themselves basking in the respect and curiosity of their peers.

“A lot of people have been saying they wish they took it up. We try dragging them in, but they think it’s too late,” said Matt Cotton, a sophomore thrower and sprinter, who is quarterback of the football team. “I think if you’re good at something, you should go for it. You have so many opportunities in track. You can run. You can throw. You can jump.”

Menendez manages a summer track and field camp in Auburn that hosts more than 150 athletes. While he threw out the random figure of 30 to set the bar for his eager former students, the coach doesn’t see himself giving up on the program even if the numbers wane for a year or two.

“The thing with numbers, if I’ve got kids that are enthusiastic, I really don’t care,” Menendez said. “I don’t get paid. The kids want some help. They’re willing to learn. It’s just a good feeling when you get it done.”

Monmouth athletic director Steve Ouellette acknowledges that a track is on his wildest “wish list,” but there is no official fund-raising program or even a prospective location at present.

Then again, a full-fledged facility isn’t necessary to win big in Class C. Nearby Winthrop and Lisbon have won many league, regional and state titles with nothing but a tried-and-true dirt track on their premises.

“This actually helps you,” Embrey said. “You know how big sports people work out with their trainer? Well, this is our trainer. We’re building strength and technique.”

And building a program, from the paved ground up.