On Saturday the 30th, one day before Halloween, both of Palmetto’s raider teams placed first at the district meet and cinched their spots in the state competition. Each team nearly swept, placing first in each event except for one. 

This is a major turn around from their first meet of the season, where the team didn’t place in any event. The difference in performance begs the question “What changed?”

When asked why the team made it to the state competition, the raider team members had a couple answers. Brian Corona pointed to “the friendship bonds in between each one of the team members,” which let everyone “work efficiently and motivate each other”. As to the difference in early and late season performance, Jean Paul Bravo said, “we learned from our mistakes at the beginning of the season and didn’t settle to be [the] team at the bottom of the rankings.” Other raiders blamed the team’s success on the addition of morning practices to the training schedule. 

Going into the state meet, the team is looking forward to what the future holds. Hopefully they can uphold the raider team’s winning tradition. If they win again this year, it would mark three consecutive first place runs for the team, and the first ever for the female team.