VIRGINIA BEACH — They traveled separately. They competed as a team.

Butler High School track and field athletes Guinness Brown, Skyler Vavro and CJ Singleton headed down to the Virginia Beach Sports Center this weekend to compete in the Adidas Indoor Track and Field National Championships.

The Golden Tornado — by Pennsylvania mandate — did not have a 2021 indoor season.

“It's pretty cool having three guys from Butler down here,” Singleton said. “We just want to get some races in.”

Brown placed fourth in the boys 400-meter preliminaries Friday, running the event in a school-indoor record 49.05 seconds. He placed seventh in the 200-meter prelims, running a 21.95.

Brown qualified for the finals in both events. The 200 will be run Saturday, the 400 on Sunday.

“I'm interested in (personal records) more than school records right now,” Brown said. “My (personal record) in the 200 is 21.93, so I'm close to where I want to be.

“My goal is to get on the podium and medal in both events. I believe the top six get to do that.”

The top eight in each event are high school All-Americans.

Singleton placed sixth in the 5,000 meters Friday night, running the event in 15:18. It was the first time he's competed in the 5,000 and this was his sixth meet this winter, all out of state.

The runners who finished ahead of him were from Michigan, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland and California, respectively. Runners from Virginia, New Hampshire and Massachusetts finished seventh through ninth.

“I wasn't happy with the way I ran today,” Singleton said. “I didn't finish the last half of the race like I thought I would.

“Running the 5,000 was a little different, but I feel like I could have done better. I'll use this as motivation in getting ready for the outdoor season. I want a WPIAL title. It's time to get to work.”

While Brown and Singleton have competed in multiple meets this winter, Vavro took part in his first competition since the end of the indoor season a year ago.

He was 22nd out of more than 100 runners in the mile, sporting a time of 4 minutes, 31.32 seconds.

“It's been so long,” Vavro said of running a race. “I wanted to get out of Butler for a few days, come down here and have some fun on the track.

“It was a little hard getting ready after that layoff, but we were robbed of our indoor season. I wanted to get at least one race in.”

Vavro emphasized that Brown “is just running great. He's so locked in right now.”

Now all three are getting ready for outdoor competition.

“I'm pretty happy with what I did down here,” Vavro said. “I thought I ran a good race.”