Hosting a party is always a lot of work. Playing the host for a track meet is exactly the same way. Saturday, March 28th, Rocklin hosted the annual Thunder Invitational.

This meet is the main fundraiser for the RHS track and field team, and this year was the most lucrative in Coach Matt Eckman’s memory.

“It seems like the more we put into it, the more we get out of it,” Eckman said.

This year, the estimated profit from the meet was about $8,000-$9,000 and it will be spent buying new equipment for the team.

“The oldest pieces of equipment on the field are the high jump pits – athletes can’t get up from them without getting these yellow puff balls all over themselves. They really need to be replaced,” said Coach Matt Bumgardner.

The pits are actually quite expensive, costing about $5,000-$15,000 each. That amount of money is a lot to ask out of the athlete’s wallets of course, so naturally the focus is on fundraising.

“Last year we had to sell cookie dough. The coaches tried to get us to sell like 20 boxes, but I only sold one box to my mom. They were pretty expensive.” said team member Jennifer Miyashiro.

To help make the meet run smoothly, the Rocklin athletes could only run in one event (besides the relays). For the remainder of the meet, the Rocklin athletes were asked to help out either by running an event, timing the runners, setting up hurdles, or serving food in the snack bar.

The meet lasted from 9 AM to around 6:30 PM. Some athletes worked up to 10 hours! Thrower Chad Weaver started working around 7 in the morning. He competed in the last flight of the last event – discuss (around 6:00 PM) and ended up placing overall in finals!

The meet hosted about 1,500-1,600 athletes total.

Despite the limitation on entries for Rocklin athletes, the boys varsity placed 5th overall. The team also had several first places including Sammy Bartels in the girls varsity 800 meters, Chad Weaver in the boys varsity discuss, Rob Simmons in the boys varsity pole vault, and the varsity girls 4x4 team in their relay too!

The host gets to enjoy the party too, right?