Athlete Of The Week: Lucy Cortese

HARWICH – Monomoy eighth grader Lucy Cortese has hit the ground running in her first year on the Sharks’ track team.

Cortese, in her fourth year running track overall, has already qualified for nationals in the 400-meter run. On Jan. 6 during a Cape and Islands League meet, Cortese won the 600-meter event with a personal best, then went on to win a 300-meter dash among freshmen at The Nor’Easter, a multi-state invitational held last weekend in Boston.

“I've been trying new things, and it's been going really nicely,” Cortese said during a Monomoy indoor track practice last Friday. “A lot of opportunities have opened up for me, and I'm really excited to take those and take advantage of those opportunities. Just keep improving and getting better.”

Cortese also runs for the girls 4x200 relay team, a group that’s right at the top of Division 5. The team — senior Alexa Ford, senior Zay-Dah Thomas, Cortese and junior Varvara Conley — won the 4x200 at the Jan. 6 meet and has qualified for nationals. 

“We're always improving together, and we're having fun in the process,” Cortese said.

Being a newcomer to the track and field team hasn’t been an obstacle at all for Cortese. She’s started understanding the strategies of races plus how to better train at home and said that it was nice being introduced to a “whole new level of the sport I love.”

“We're forming our own community, and we're really supporting each other,” she said. “We're growing as a team, and our times are getting faster as a team.”

The 400-meter was previously one of Cortese’s main races, she said, and she won it at an all-Cape meet last year. She’s qualified for the event at nationals in the middle school division.

“Going to nationals is just such a cool opportunity, and I’m really thankful that I get the opportunities like that,” she said.