When Mason Barrieau is in the middle of a sprinting event for the Athol indoor track team, he prefers to have a runner ahead of him.
“The best way to get a better time in your race is to have someone slightly faster than you ahead of you,” Barrieau said. “Then you know you have to beat them. You just need to get past that one guy.”
With the PVIAC championships Friday night at Smith College in Northampton, Barrieau will get his chance to compete against the best western Massachusetts has to offer.
“I definitely like it,” Barrieau said. “The bigger schools you have more competition. It’s fun playing with the big schools.”
Barrieau will compete in the 55-meter high hurdles and the 600 for the Red Raiders. Barrieau is the second seed in the 600 behind Ethan Cooper of Northampton.
Distance runner Dennis St. Jean will run in the 1,000 for the Red Raiders. St. Jean placed eighth last season.
“I am looking to improve on that,” St. Jean said. “I trained really hard over the summer. Kept it up through the fall which gave me a really good base going into the season.”
Junior Grace Dufour is taking on the 300 and the long jump. This is Dufour’s first postseason competing in individual events.
“I am pretty excited because my freshman year I was pretty close to qualifying,” Dufour said. “It’s been a couple years now that I have wanted to qualify. I am seeded last so I can only improve. I am trying not to think about it too much.”
First-time shot putter Rashelly Dalmau-Gonzalez is headed to her first postseason meet for the Red Raiders.
“I wanted to do it for a while,” Dalmau-Gonzalez said. “But I never saw myself doing it. I didn’t have the self-confidence in it. But I tried it out and I liked it. My first throws were like 21 and 22. I figured if I kept on going I could get better.”
Dalmau-Gonzalez improved her throw to 29 feet, 4½ inches.
“Every day in practice I motivate myself to push harder,” Dalmau-Gonzalez said.
The Red Raiders boys will have a 4×800 and 4×400 relay team competing.
