RUMFORD – It’s no coincidence that the average height of the Mountain Valley boys’ track team rose this year by nearly three inches.

It is under the same circumstances that the depth of the team nearly tripled, and that the team itself is doing exponentially better this year.

So, what happened?

The basketball team invaded the track.

Nine of the 12 varsity basketball players at Mountain Valley High School are participating in track and field, giving coach Al Cayer his deepest team in years.

“What they have done is improve depth in all of the positions on the track and in the field events,” Cayer said. “It puts at least one extra athlete in 16 of 19 total events, giving us depth that we haven’t seen in a long time.”

That depth has led to dominance in the MVC. With only the conference meet and state meet left on the schedule, the Falcons have yet to suffer a defeat, and will certainly be one of the favorites heading into the MVC meet Friday at Leavitt High School.

Going from basketball, and for some of the athletes, soccer, to track and field is not always an easy transition.

“As you can well imagine,” Cayer said, “most of them wanted to jump to improve that skill for basketball.”

Basketball was a prime motivating factor for many of the players to join the team.

“Getting in shape for summer basketball is important,” Isaac Stickney said. “I’ve done this before, and it helped.”

Having a few teammates already in the track program, as well as other friends involved, didn’t hurt, either.

“If it wasn’t for the track athletes we had here before, we wouldn’t have been able to convince these guys to come out in the first place,” Cayer said. “And it’s the work ethic of those that were here already that has helped the newer guys along.”

According to some of the players, they were actually duped into showing up at first.

“I remember someone saying we could come and go when we wanted,” Jeremy Childs said. “Basically we were originally going to come out here and just have a little fun. It’s still fun, but it’s a lot of work.”

“That was the ploy,” said Cayer, hiding a smirk as he turned away from the athletes.

The benefit

When Cayer heads to the MVC seeding meeting Wednesday, he will be placing several of his athletes across the board in several different events, a luxury he hasn’t had in quite some time.

“I can remember 10 years ago when this school had some great track teams and a large program,” Cayer said. “It’s good to see it starting to gain recognition among the students again. What this may do is start a trickle-down effect and get more people at the school interested in the program.”

Another benefit the surge in numbers has had is a re-establishment of a team concept, a hard proposition with so few athletes.

“In basketball, you can rely more on your teammates if you need to,” Childs said. “In track, while it’s more individual, it’s kind of the same because everyone is there cheering you on, and the ultimate goal is team points. From there, everything kind of falls into place.”

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