Fall II Athlete Spotlights: Week Five
Finding Success in Sprinting
Bill Marquardt, with permission, and graphics by Emily Coulsey
Junior Winter Track & Field member Maria Wood is highlighted as a Fall II Sports Athlete of the Week.
April 16, 2021
Abington High School’s Student Athletic Advisory Committee(SAAC) has decided to honor two athletes during each week of the 2020-2021 Fall II season. SAAC will recognize one male and one female athlete per week, from the Football, Indoor Track (run outdoors), Volleyball, and Gameday Cheerleading teams. Highlighted on the fifth week of these Fall II spotlights is Maria Wood.
Maria Wood
This week’s female Fall II spotlight is Maria Wood. She is a junior on this year’s winter track and field team. Wood is a sprinter for the team and has been running since the seventh grade. Through all these years, her favorite memory from track would be the Twilight Invitational meet in Norwell in 2019. Wood and the rest of her teammates faced teams from all over the state and ran late into the night. This was also the meet where Wood broke a 24-year-old school record. She currently holds the school record in the 100m, 4 x100m relay, and 4x200m relay in the spring season and the 55m and 300m record in the winter season. Wood said she chose track and field because of the “super supportive atmosphere, and once [she] started learning all these new ways to get faster [she] fell in love with the sport.”
On top of the school records she holds, Wood is also a 2-time Enterprise All-Scholastic, 1-time South Shore League All-Star, and finished 6th in the 100m dash as a freshman in the Division 4 MIAA State Championship in the spring of 2019. She credits her success to her family and her sprinting coach, Coach Caseley. She said, “He has taught me everything I know about sprinting and he pushes me to be my best at every single practice and meet.” On top of winter track, Maria plays soccer and runs track in the spring. She also participates in many clubs after school, including Drama Club, Green Wave Gazette, Unified Sports, Student Council and National Honor Society. Her favorite memory from high school thus far is the pep rallies because she thinks it’s fun to see the whole school together showing their GWP.
