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From left to right, Roy High boys track and field team members Cole West, Colby Anderson and Brendon Bailey take part in workouts at Roy High School on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

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Roy High's boys track team poses with the Region 2 title trophy Thursday, May 12, 2022, in West Valley City.

Photo supplied, Roy High School

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From left to right, Roy High track and field team members Brendon Bailey, Colby Anderson, Cole West and Maxx Johnson take part in workouts at Roy High School on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

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Gary Adams calls the Roy High boys track and field team “The Little Track Team That Could” for a reason.

The Royals have usually been one of the smaller track teams in whatever region they’ve competed in the past several years, but it hasn’t stopped them from tallying a unique region-title streak.

They’ve won three straight region championships. Thanks to realignment and the COVID-19 pandemic, those three titles have come in three separate regions: Region 5, Region 1 and Region 2.

“Where some schools can win with a lot of second, third, sixth or whatever places, we have to win stuff. We always have less guys, we always have higher quality. Quality over quantity is the definition of Roy in my opinion,” senior sprinter Colby Anderson said.

This season, its second in the Salt Lake County-based Region 2, affords Roy the chance to actually “defend” its 2022 region title by the definition of the word.

Roy couldn’t repeat in 5A Region 5 because it was already moving up to 6A, and it couldn’t repeat in Region 1 because it moved to Region 2 the next year.

Come May, the Royals will try to win a fourth title in a row for their first genuine repeat title.

Unlike previous years, they began the 2023 track season with a target on their back, which has added some pressure to the pot.

Adams, one of Roy’s coaches, said the Region 5 triumph in 2019 was out of nowhere. Considering the Royals had finished dead last in 2018 — not just dead last, but they had 47.5 points and the next closest team had 100 — the 2019 title was a remarkable year-over-year turnaround.

Anderson’s older brother Bryce ran track for Roy in 2019, which essentially needed to win the 4 x 400 relay to win the Region 5 title.

The Royals did so by just .33 seconds, and Bryce Anderson — he now runs distance races for Weber State’s track team — ran the anchor leg on the first-place relay team that ensured Roy took home the crown.

The Region 1 title in 2021 was satisfying, Adams said, because Roy beat traditional powerhouses including Davis, Weber, Syracuse and Fremont, teams that had historically tossed the Royals around.

Roy entered the 4 x 400 relay with a seven-point lead on Syracuse, so the Royals needed to finish sixth place or better to win the team championship. They finished first instead, by .04 seconds, and won seven of the 18 overall events with strong days all around

“And it came down to our (4 x 400) and I was the anchor, so I had to pass that guy. Probably my favorite race I’ve ever ran is that (4 x 400),” Colby Anderson said.

The Region 2 title in 2022 was a different story.

Mistakes piled up on the first day; Anderson false-started in the 400, so he was disqualified. Roy’s first-place 4 x 200 relay team dropped the baton, so they were DQ’d and 10 team points went begging.

Roy came back the next day, took care of business and won the region title by 40 points.

“It felt great, honestly. Everybody from the team had to contribute and it just felt good that we came together and did that to win the third one in a row. It feels different when it’s something bigger than yourself that you’re competing for. Everybody on the team has to help,” senior Brendon Bailey said.

Bailey took fourth place in the 300 hurdles at the Region 2 meet and was fifth in the high jump. He’s also running the 4 x 400 relay this season.

If the Royals win this year it will be as the odds-on favorite, but it might be a tougher slog than previous years.

Adams said the team is talented enough to win Region 2 — Colby Anderson himself is signed with Weber State to run sprints and has the second fastest time in the state so far this season at 48.43 seconds — but the constant spring snow, lack of meets, indoor practices through the labyrinthine school hallways and spring break have led to Roy not having its full team together yet.

“We’ve gotta get kids to refocus, recommit and then just continue to work. I think we’ve got the talent there, if they stay focused, stay committed, we’re back from spring break now, that distraction’s over,” Adams said.

The Royals lost a lot of point scorers from 2022’s team, including sprinter Parker Kingston, distance runner Miles Hislop and three javelin throwers — Ethan Ecker, Reese Jones, Kobe Bennett — who combined for 24 points at last year’s region meet.

This year’s team is deeper in the sprints than it is in the distance and field events, but “deep” is a relative term when talking about Roy.

“It’s obviously more pressure than a team that can show up and throw 20 guys in an event and then, someone’s gonna score some points. In that way it’s hard, it gives us more pressure when you line up against everybody, but it’s more exciting, it’s more fulfilling to do that. So I would choose that over the other way, yeah, it’s fun,” Anderson said.

At the same time, the smaller team size can serve as a motivating factor.

“We just know that we gotta be a lot more gritty, gotta work a lot harder because our team’s smaller. So I think that it could be helpful when we use our mentality right,” Bailey said.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.