Athlete of the week: E.L. 4 x 400 relay

EAST LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) - The East Longmeadow girls won the Western Mass indoor track title. The Spartans 4 x 400 relay team also qualified for the New England championships in a race they weren't even supposed to run. That relay team of Maya Rhinehart, Ali McMahon, Kayla Rybacki and Candace Casper are the 22News athletes of the week.

"Basically we were at Divisionals (the Division III state meet) that's when everything kind of went wrong", says East Longmeadow senior Maya Rhinehart.  She continues, "we had the whole incident of not checking in on time then I felt so horrible because we kicked out the old team."

This Spartans relay team was originally going to run the 4 x 200 at the Division III state meet, but instead replaced another Spartans relay team in the 4 x 400.

"It wasn't the main event that we were planning on running, so we just went out there and ran for ourselves and the team", says the Spartans Candace Casper.

Adrenaline, a lack of pressure and little time to think about the race helped. Each leg of this relay team set a personal best during that race.

"When we crossed the finish line and we found out we broke the school record by eight seconds, everyone was just so happy", says East Longmeadow's Ali McMahon.

The Spartans practice in the back gym in their school and were thrilled to get the opportunity to race one more week.

"We would never have made it to New England's in the 4 x 200, so its redeeming that we got to run it at New England's now", says Spartans senior Kayla Rybacki.

The Spartans relay team set another school record at the New England Meet, finishing in 7th place.