Salem shows off new track at first home meet in almost 30 years (PHOTOS)

David Hunt was beaming like a proud father on Friday afternoon.

His Salem boys and girls winter track teams had both just performed well in a meet with Woodstown, Penns Grove and Pennsville, to be sure. But the results almost didn’t matter on this day.

The real reason Hunt was so happy was because his athletes finally had a home to call their own.

After nearly three decades of hitting the road, Salem hosted its first official meet on its brand-new track behind the high school. The track was completed in fall of 2019 and was supposed to be unveiled last spring, but with the season canceled due to COVID-19, its debut got delayed.




A large, socially distanced crowd was on hand Friday as Salem athletic director Darryl Roberts and Hunt welcomed in every other school in Salem County to participate in the opening competition. Schalick was the only team not able to make it.

“This was our vision when Mr. Roberts and I met last week,” Hunt said. “It’s not a spring meet but what a way to break it in by having everyone come out and see our facility. At spring track meets you can struggle to get people out, so to have a winter meet with this amount of people was exciting. It’s been 28 years so the kids are really proud of what they have. Ultimately, it’s not ours — it’s the kids’ facility.”

Salem had not hosted a track meet since the early 1990s at its athletic complex on Walnut Street, where the football team still plays.

“It’s an old cinder track, so even in ’91 that wasn’t the best,” Roberts said. “The teams practiced on it every now and again but usually they would just practice here in the field. Sometimes if they needed actual track work, they would go to another school and practice to get used to the measurements and everything. So this is really exciting for all of us.”

“This levels the playing field preparation wise,” Hunt added. “We were running on a yard track; it wasn’t measured out right, it was gravel. We didn’t have pole vault, we didn’t have a real long jump or triple jump pit. This changes things. The kids really like it and they take pride in it.”

The track events held on Friday, for both boys and girls, were the 55-meter dash along with the 200, 400, 800 and 1,600. Both boys and girls also competed in the shot put.

Two winners for Salem were the brother-sister duo of senior Trevor Buzby and freshman Anna Buzby, who won the 1,600 and 800, respectively.

“It’s really cool because we’ve been running down at the football field on a cinder track and to finally have a home meet with everybody here is pretty special,” Trevor Buzby said.

He set a PR in the 1,600 with a time of 5:20, leading from start to finish. He was joined by a Woodstown runner for the first two laps but pulled away in the third lap and cruised to victory.

“I knew that guy was going to try to stick right with me so I held my pace and didn’t try to go too fast,” said Buzby, who also took second in the 800. “In the third lap when I heard him drop off a little bit, I put the gas on. That was my PR so it was cool to do that on a new track.”

Buzby was even more proud of his sister, who clocked a winning time of 2:38.8 in the 800.

“That was amazing,” he said. “We were a little bit worried because she had just run the 400 a little bit before that and we thought she might be a little tired. But she was sitting in second or third the whole time and around the 200-meter mark, she pulled around the outside (to pass the leader) and it was so exciting to see her do that. She was 0.4 seconds off the (winter) record as a freshman.”

There were nine girls in the race, including one from Penns Grove who had just defeated Buzby in the 400.

“I ran with her in the 400 and she was really fast,” she said. “I was nervous because there was a lot of girls, more than usual, and she came right out in front. I passed second place and I was keeping right with her, so at the end I figured I would try to pass her and do my best. Passing her was my main focus and then it turned out really good.”

The Buzbys are known for their work ethic and seem to bring out the best in each other.

“We live on a farm so we’ve always been physically active doing farm work,” Trevor said. “We race mountain bikes together at the bike shop in Woodstown, Sneakers and Spokes, so we’ve been training for that. She played field hockey and I ran cross country in the fall and then we figured we’d do winter track together.”

Hunt knew the kind of competitor he had in Trevor, and now he is seeing the same thing in Anna.

“They don’t get cheated — they come out and work hard every day,” he said. “Trev has that work ethic and it kind of spills to his sister. She actually competes with him. A lot of times at practice you keep the girls with the girls and the boys with the boys, but I let her compete with Trevor and the boy runners, and that’s actually pulled her along really well.

“She’s been looking at school records and she’s setting personal goals to break those records now, in ninth grade. When a kid is intrinsically motivated like that, you can’t teach it. It has nothing to do with me. I’ll design every workout in the world but if she’s not going to invest in herself and work hard, none of that is going to matter.”

Hunt was equally impressed with his sprinters: seniors Lee Coleman and Bobby Arnold and sophomores Emmanuel Lane and Amare Smith, who dominated the 55-meter boys race. Lane was first followed by Coleman, Smith and Arnold, ranging in time from 6.4 to 6.7 seconds.

“To bring in other teams for us is fun because they compete against each other every day in practice,” he said. “They know if they’re not in the top five, they may have to run something they don’t want to run. They’ll do it but either way they’re competing to get in those races. Depth is a great thing to have because this will carry right over to the spring.”

With the spring season approaching, Salem is looking forward to hosting a full season on the new track. Hunt even said they would love to bring back their rival schools for the Salem County Championships.

“We’d love to host it,” he said. “Why not? (The other schools) have three decades on us.”

As for Anna Buzby, she has high hopes for her rookie outdoor season and the rest of her career.

“I’m really excited,” she said. “I like being out here with all of these people and I think getting this track is really a special thing. I can’t wait to keep running on this track and beat records.”

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